The company has added a new production line to the APPL GOR Plastics India Pvt. Ltd. plant to serve customers in India and the Asia Pacific region. The new extrusion line, located in Pune, near Mumbai, is the first facility outside of Europe able to produce Renolit Tecnogor thermoformable sheets and rolls, along with other lightweight products in the Renolit Composites range.

A key feature of the new production line design is the inclusion of Renolit’s patented extrusion processing technology for manufacturing what it describes as a 100% recyclable thermoplastic composite material. High-quality 3D trim parts can be consistently thermoformed in a high productivity ‘glue-free’ one-step-process, which reduces production costs.

Thanks to its unique production process, Renolit Tecnogor reportedly possesses superior stiffness and impact performance. The patented fiber embedding extrusion technique also makes Renolit Tecnogor a clean, very safe material to use on the shop floor and handle post molding. This is because all the glass fibers are completely encapsulated in the PP polymer matrix during extrusion, so there are no free-floating fibers in the air during lay-up or exposed on the molded part surface. This will be a major safety benefit to customers in the Indian market, which currently mainly uses glass fiber mats to produce composite molded parts.

The versatile new line can also produce Renolit Deep-Stock, Renolit Flexigor, plus Renolit Wood-Stock, a wood-fiber composite which was the only Renolit product manufactured in India until now. “For many years we could only offer the classic Renolit Wood-Stock sheet range. We are very pleased to be able to now offer our clients a wider range of sustainable products which offer solutions to real problems the market is facing using traditional glass fiber mats”, said Rahul Chivate, General Manager of APPL GOR Plastics India. The Renolit Composites products now being produced in India are primarily aimed at Tier 1 thermoformers supplying automotive OEMs in India and the Asia Pacific. They offer vehicle producers safer and more environmentally friendly material solutions to cost-effectively fabricate, automotive trim parts.

Renolit Tecnogor has gained a leading position in the global automotive interiors market with leading German, Italian, French and Japanese car markers for a variety of thermoformed, custom-coated, vehicle interior 3D trim parts including parcel shelves, load floors, seat back covers, dashboard inserts, and trunk trims. For other interior and exterior vehicle applications, such as door inserts, map pockets, trunk side trims, and wheel arch liners, Renolit Flexigor has been supplied to the thermoformer with a customer-specified aesthetic surface fabric applied to either one or both sides as required. Renolit Flexigor is a highly thermoformable, low VOC, lightweight composite material based on polyolefin and renewable natural/ mineral raw material fillers, so is sustainable as well as being a fully recyclable product.