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Green seat?

And now for plant-based fabric for car interiors

Confused about car interiors? Can't make up your mind about what you are looking for? Well here's more news that will add to your confusion. Honda, in its quest to reduce carbon dioxide emissions throughout the entire life cycle of a car - from production and usage, to disposal, has developed a plant-based fabric for use as a material for car interiors.

Bio fabric

The `Bio-Fabric' as it is called, offsets all carbon dioxide emissions produced during the disposal stage of the car, through the carbon dioxide absorption that occurs during the growth stage of the plants used as the raw materials.

Plant-based fabric had not been accepted enthusiastically in the past because of its limited durability and aesthetic reasons. However, the fabric developed by Honda uses a basic material for the `bio-fabric' - a polyester material called PPT (Polypropylene Terephtalate). PPT, produced through polymerization of 1-3 PDO (propanediol), which is produced from corn and terephthalic acid, which is a petroleum-based component.

Honda has improved the stability of the fabric by applying a multi-thread structure to the fibre. Also, unprecedented aesthetic properties were achieved by leveraging the flexibility of this fibre. The new `bio-fabric' does not require changes in existing fabric production processes and is suitable for mass production.

The plant-based ingredient in the production of raw materials for the newly developed bio-fabric will enable Honda to reduce energy used during the production processes by 10 to 15 per cent as compared to the production of petroleum-based polyester materials.

Using the plant-based ingredient can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of each car by five kilograms.

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