Ford Motor Company is the first in the USA to try to ‘go green’ all the way they possibly can when fabricating car interiors. Their intention is to replace around forty percent of polymer-based products in the new cars they build with soy-based products.
The ‘new car’ smell will soon be different. The thirty pounds of petroleum-based foam used in cushioning the insides of new cars will be replaced with material derived from soy beans. This includes head restraints, arm rests and seatbacks.
This change from petrol products to vegetable products inside automobiles will result in a savings of around twenty-six million dollars per year to the auto makers. Besides the financial savings, there will be a significant reduction in non-biodegradable trash showing up in landfills in the future.
One of the problems which Ford has with the new soy-based polyurethane foam is the odor. Some people consider the ‘new car’ smell is more like rancid cooking oil. Ford has applied for two patents for their soy-based foam. One of these is for a low-odor process to synthesize polyols. Ford is attempting to get a new car smell that consumers will not object to in their products.
The new seats can still be leather-covered if that is the only objection consumers will have to the new material. Around 45,000 cars with this new bio-polymer will be available by the year’s end. The models which Ford is using for the ‘go-green’ approach are the Lincoln Navigator SUV, Mustang, F-150 Pickup and Ford Expedition.
It is not clear why Ford chose only the most expensive of its models to experiment with instead of the cheaper or the hybrid models. Still, it is a major step toward becoming less dependent on oil products, at least in the production of cars.
To see this article as a published piece on the Internet, go to:
http://www.scienceray.com/Technology/Applied-Science/Soy-Based-Car-Interiors-in-Fords.135068
