Interior

It’s basically a package of over 80 actions that aims to protect citizens and the environment from harmful chemicals, while at the same time helping businesses move towards safer and more sustainable alternatives.

The CSS was published in 2020, and many of these actions are now being implemented, all overseen by a roundtable of stakeholders to make sure the objectives are achieved.

There are numerous parts to it, but the two key ones are strengthening certain aspects of chemicals legislation, and supporting innovation for safe and sustainable chemicals.

Of course, there are numerous regulations on chemicals already in place, applied at a national and EU-wide level, which industries like ours have an excellent record of complying with. But the CSS points out that with global chemicals production expected to double by 2030, and with the number of new chemicals continuing to rise, a more radical approach is needed to prevent citizens and the environment from being exposed to potential harm.

Quite a lot of it comes down to chemical regulations. So plans are being put in place, for example, to tighten existing restrictions on carcinogens, mutagens and reproductive toxins (CMRs). At the same time, new restrictions will be introduced on chemicals that research has indicated are of concern, such as endocrine disruptors and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). And the lists of chemicals in these categories, and others, are growing as evidence mounts over the long-term effects on certain chemicals previously thought to be relatively benign – so it’s an ever-changing landscape.

And in addition to this, measures will be put in place to encourage innovation to develop safer alternatives that are ‘sustainable by design’. This includes not just attending to safety profiles, but looking at products more holistically, for example reducing their carbon footprint, or making them easier to recycle as part of a circular economy.

It comes down to two factors. The first is the number of materials used in car interiors, particularly fabrics, carpets, leather, foams and polymers, all of which typically use a range of chemicals in their production, and which have the potential to come into contact with the driver or passengers. Secondly, it’s the confined nature of the car cabin, which can lead to a build-up of the more volatile chemicals, and consequently poor air quality.

Yes, it certainly is – those in the industry will be well aware of discussions around the ‘new car smell’ dating back to the early 2000s, and the subsequent moves to develop materials with low levels of harmful volatile organic compounds or VOCs, alongside analytical methods to quantify them.

But that’s only part of the story, because the chemicals that are increasingly of concern often aren’t that volatile, but they can get into our bodies or into the environment in other ways – and that more holistic viewpoint is what the CSS is putting in place.

Arguably, yes. Historically, most of the impetus for restrictions on chemicals in automotive interiors came from customers and OEMs themselves, and that was passed down the supply chain. Up to now, regulators have trailed somewhat, only stepping in to restrict the most harmful chemicals.

But with the release of the CSS, it’s likely that regulators will start playing a more prominent role, with a broader focus on chemicals that maybe don’t have such a great sustainability profile. So the upshot is that the existing landscape around chemicals in automotive interiors is going to change, and anyone involved in the supply chains will need to be aware of the latest developments.

Plus, it seems likely that the regulations that will come out of the CSS will mean that the allowable levels of chemicals in products sold in the EU will be the strictest worldwide – so it makes sense as a supplier to take our lead from that when it comes to our products.

Sometimes it’s a relatively straightforward process to make a replacement, with little or no loss of functionality or cost-effectiveness. But in other cases, the functionality provided by the chemical in question is such a feature of the process or the product that you need to go back to the drawing board.

For performance tapes, certain solvents are a case in point, because they’re integral to the process of dissolving the adhesive polymer and depositing it as a solution on the carrier film. Finding solvents that can dissolve polymers easily, and that also have relatively low volatility and a high flash point, is really difficult. Plus on top of that you have to bear in mind sustainability and cost-effectiveness.

That’s right. Of course, the solvents we use in our tapes have always met the most strict regulatory requirements, but the regulatory landscape is changing rapidly. To address the issues raised by the CSS, you could go to a lot of effort to replace one solvent with another that’s currently deemed safer. But from a business perspective, in 10 or 15 years’ time that might fall under the regulations too, and then you’re back with the same problem.

So, we thought why not just eliminate these solvents altogether? Let’s take UV acrylics as an example. Instead of polymerizing the adhesive in solvent, and then applying the solvent solution to the carrier film, you can tweak the chemistry of the polymer chains instead so that the polymer is a liquid at elevated temperatures. Then, all you need to do is heat it up, apply it to the carrier film, and it’s ready to be UV-cured. There’s no solvent involved at all, so we end up with a product that is very close to being zero-VOC.

Similar solvent-free UV acrylics have been widely used in certain automotive interior applications for quite a while already, but only in applications where their very low VOC content has been essential – such as in seat heating mats. But we know that this technology is straightforward to apply elsewhere in automotive interiors, for example to affix polyurethane foams or polyester fleeces. In fact, the latter is a good example, because unlike polyurethane foam it doesn’t contain isocyanate and is more easily recyclable. As a result, it’s a material that’s likely to become more widely used – so it’s one we’re looking at closely. It’s all about staying ahead of the curve!

Well, excellent though our modified UV acrylics are, they’re not suitable for every automotive interior application, because they don’t adhere so well to some plastic substrates. So to fill that application gap, and avoid the need to go back to solvent-based adhesives, we’ve come up with hotmelt rubbers.

These are rather different chemically, being a rubber mixed with tackifiers, forming a pressure-sensitive adhesive that doesn’t need curing. So as well as instant adhesion, they form a particularly strong bond within the temperature range we’re talking about for automotive interiors. And importantly, they stick really well to plastics, which is very useful given the quantities of plastics used in vehicles these days, especially as we move towards EVs and the trend for ‘lightweighting’ that we’re seeing there.

Very much so, and I’d go so far as to say that with our range of performance tapes featuring these modified UV acrylics and hotmelt rubbers, we’ve leapfrogged over the whole CSS situation. Because they’re free of volatile components that could cause concern either now or further down the line, if you’re a Tier 1 or Tier 2 supplier looking to address the issues raised by the CSS, they’re a future-proof solution!

We already have over 40 of these products on the market, so we’ve been leading the way in anticipating the need for safer products in the automotive sector. It’s a case of reassuring customers that the challenges posed by CSS can be overcome, and that there are products on the shelf today that are ready and waiting to be used. Alternatively, of course, we have the technology and expertise to adapt them to a customer’s exact needs.

There are a number of strands to our sustainability strategy, of which addressing the chemicals used in our products is just one. For example, one of the reasons why CSS has a focus on reducing or eliminating certain chemicals is to simplify and streamline end-of-life processing of materials, to assist in the development of a circular economy – so our new tapes tick that box, too. 

Our performance tapes featuring UV acrylics and hotmelt rubbers also help to move towards a circular economy in another way, by making it easier to deconstruct assemblies that otherwise might have used permanent fixings. Plus there’s the use of recycled and bio-based materials in our products, as well as our drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions arising from our activities.

So the work we’ve done on solvent reduction in anticipation of the CSS is part of a bigger picture… and one that points to a safer, healthier future for automotive interiors. I’m excited to be part of it!