Researchers at the Public University of Navarre (UPNA) are collaborating on the Autopolicond project using certain nanoparticles for enhancing the properties of plastic materials used in parts for the automobile sector. The project targets are twinfold: employing a type of nanoparticle in order to reduce weight and increase mechanical resistance, and using other nanoparticles to give electrical conductivity to plastic parts.

The project, focused on industrial applications and specifically on the injection of vehicle parts for the automobile sector, is part of the INNPACTO programme of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. This programme encourages cooperation amongst research bodies and businesses to undertake joint R+D+i projects. In this case, the partners are the Fundación L’Urederra, UPNA, and CYGSA and MAIER, the two companies leading the project. Each of the partners is responsible for developing a different part of the project, which is to last two and a half years (finishing at the end of 2013), although the work of the UPNA will conclude this coming June.

According to researcher Mr. Javier Goicoechea of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at UPNA, “the project incorporates various nanoparticles into the plastic components of vehicles, with two objectives: to reduce the density of the material while maintaining its mechanical properties, thus enabling reducing the amount of plastic that has to be injected into the part and its weight in the automobile; or otherwise to increase the electrical conductivity of the plastic material so that it is suitable for electrostatic painting processes, commonly used for certain vehicle parts”.

In the case in hand, the work at UPNA involves carrying out characterisation measurements of the nanoparticles and the polymer compounds. In concrete, it verifies that the nanoparticles are well dispersed in the matrix and undertakes measurements of electrical conductivity in the polymers.

Of the other partners in the consortium, the Fundación L’Urederra is developing nanoparticles and functionalising them; CYGSA is incorporating nanoparticles into polymers, both at a laboratory scale as well as at a pre-industrial scale; while MAIER is setting out the specifications, proposing parts and materials and incorporating the resulting compounds into the plastic parts injected on a pre-industrial scale.

* Elhuyar translation, published in www.basqueresearch.com