Through co-development efforts with SABIC Innovative Plastics, Japan's Nissei Eco Company Ltd. has created a unique solution to significantly reduce the environmental impact of wire harness insulation. That solution is ECO-01 tubing, a wire insulation product made from SABIC Innovative Plastics' Flexible Noryl* resin.
This high-tech resin is inherently flame retardant (FR) and free of environmentally harmful heavy metals. It also provides OEMs of home appliances and other products with high heat performance without expensive secondary operations. SABIC Innovative Plastics' continued investment in high-performance, green technologies is helping customers like Nissei Eco accelerate the creation of differentiated, environmentally progressive end products in an array of markets worldwide.
"SABIC Innovative Plastics' Flexible Noryl resin enabled us to develop a breakthrough tubing product to give our company a significant competitive advantage," said Michio Inamura, chief executive officer, Nissei Eco. "The key to this success was replacing potentially harmful flame-retardant materials without sacrificing high performance or raising costs. Flexible Noryl resin met all of our requirements for the new ECO-01 product line and, thanks to this exceptional SABIC Innovative Plastics material, our customers are very pleased with what the new tubing has to offer."
"SABIC Innovative Plastics is intensely focused on developing advanced materials solutions with the environment in mind - from significantly reducing hazardous substances to using up-cycled and bio-source materials," said Cathleen Hess, Noryl resin global product marketing director, SABIC Innovative Plastics. "Flexible Noryl resin is an excellent example of this. The material continues to break new ground by providing a unique environmental outcome for the most demanding wire and cable applications, demonstrating SABIC Innovative Plastics' commitment to working alongside customers such as Nissei Eco for environmentally progressive solutions."
High Performance with Lower Environmental Impact
Flexible Noryl resin for wire insulation offers OEMs a significantly better material choice vs. traditional polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which contains halogen chlorine. Not only is Flexible Noryl resin non-halogenated to help customers meet global environmental requirements, but the FR material also surpasses PVC in wear resistance. As measured by the JASO-D-608-92 abrasion test, Nissei Eco found that Flexible Noryl resin has much higher abrasion resistance than that of PVC.
Further, Flexible Noryl resin surpasses other non-halogenated materials such as flame-retardant polyethylene (PE) in terms of affordability and processing ease. Because Flexible Noryl resin delivers high-temperature performance and can meet the requirements of UL105C, it does not require cross linking using electron beam radiation - a process that is necessary for flame-retardant PE. Cross linking adds time and cost, and also makes the material stiffer and harder to process.
The SABIC Innovative Plastics material also provides excellent flexibility with a high-quality surface finish.
ECO-01 tubing for wire harnesses has been specified by several home appliance manufacturers in Japan, while Nissei Eco is actively working to gain specifications around the globe.