Ford envisions broad portfolio of renewable materials - including coffee

A broad portfolio of renewable materials is available now that can help the automotive industry reduce its carbon footprint. Many of these new materials exceed the performance of traditional plastic composites, and more are constantly coming online. This was the message from Dr. Deborah Mielewski, senior technical leader of sustainable and advanced materials at Ford, during her recent “Greener materials for a greener world” virtual keynote at the 2020 SPE Automotive Composites Conference.

According to Mielewski, Ford already has more than 10 renewable materials in production, including natural fiber reinforced composites such as wheat straw, rice hulls and tree-based cellulose fiber that exceed traditional-material performance. “Over the past five years, we have kicked off several new material investigations with cellulose nanofibers and materials from carbon dioxide,” Mielewski said, “and we are applying our knowledge in green materials to the exploding area of 3D printing.”