How fast car can run is not the only standard to measure whether it is advanced, because there must be the car in front of the material, we will focus on a car with what lightweight material, what material safe environmental protection, even for some high-end car doesn't use aluminum alloy after domestic and aggrieved.

Although the future of the auto material looks and we it doesn't matter, but in fact they are now in affect us, the study says 10% of body weight loss, for example, fuel consumption can reduce by 6% ~ 8%, this on ordinary car equivalent to reduce 100 kg weight of the car, fuel consumption decreased 0.3 ~ 0.6 litres.

In addition, new car interior materials containing toxic gas such as formaldehyde, benzene, acetone, xylene, can make the person poisoning symptoms such as headache, fatigue, because the space is narrow, the air content is low, so the car inside the harmful gas overweight than the harm of indoor harmful gas exceeds bid to human body more, especially in the case of auto idle for a long time, the smell is more let a person afflictive, over the years because of interior poisoning cases are not in the minority. And these are the reasons for the rapid renewal of new materials.

Aluminum and carbon fiber are too limited

Ultra-running and high-end cars are not in our discussions. After all, it's not a problem to break anything, but in the case of ordinary civilian cars, aluminum and carbon fiber materials are hardly ever really popular. Although we can hear all kinds of new material technology breakthrough every year, the price is coming down. Whether this is true or not, the change of material means that the equipment needs to be replaced, a set of large moulds will be tens of millions, and how to change it.

And the repair of aluminium alloy and carbon fiber is very difficult, damage basically is equal to scrap. It is because the material limitations is too big, so we will only use whether to use these materials as a measure of a car is advanced or not standard, but unfortunately, as the average person really can't afford to consumption. Thanks to the development of material technology, now we found a more promising materials, biological materials, it can not only meet the purpose of lightweight, also can meet the environmental requirements of the aluminum alloy and carbon fiber does not have.

What's the origin of biomaterials?

Auto interior materials is plastic, more professional is petroleum base material, it has the advantage of rapid prototyping, light quality, can satisfy the requirement of complex structure design, but the shortcomings are obvious, such as peculiar smell is heavy, most toxic, difficult degradation, so the first is to solve the problem of biological materials.

The material only needs to be properly lighting and microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi and algae, etc.), processing time can be completely decomposed, and as is the use of renewable natural resources, such as animals, plants, microorganisms as raw material by biological, chemical and physical methods to produce new materials and is usually very environmental protection, so the base material is good for health.

This kind of natural fiber reinforced composite material made from biological materials is also very rich, such as molding, injection molding and resin transfer molding, etc. And because of the chemical process in nature, different traditional heat treatment processes are in high temperature and high heat environment, and the working environment of manufacturing workers is also more friendly.

Biological materials are not far away

Many people may feel that aluminium alloy and carbon fiber is not yet understood, now is too early to talk about biological material is, but ford researchers recently announced a surprising news - "all the north American vehicles used in car seat, cushion, pillows, car roof lining (head liner) of soybean material, the material consumption to an average of 18 ~ 36 kg/car".

Ford like biological material is not a day for two days, as early as in 2012, ford with heinz, Coca-Cola, Nike and procter & gamble four companies to cooperate, to develop 100% made of plastic materials, plant and at the beginning of this year about the are studying the feasibility of bamboo production car interior. If biomaterials are most likely to be successful in the first place, it could be ford.

Last month the Netherlands college students even made a light electric vehicle LINA, as the world the vehicle by biological composite materials in the first paragraph of the article, in addition to the wheels and the suspension system, the other parts are made of flax biological matrix composites and made of sugar beet biological base of plastics and combining, biodegradable. The total weight of the LINA frame is only 310kg, while the average size of the car is about 400~ 500kg. But the biometric car did not pass the safety crash, which is now the biggest drawback of biomaterials.

In 2014, BMW has combined the technology of 3 d technology and biological materials Maasaica introduced a concept car, the car's degradation of biological materials by a mixture of hyphae mushrooms and grass grow in the structure of 3 d printing formation.

In just a few days, the 3D printed structure can combine with grass and mycelium to form a solid, high-strength lightweight body, which is then assembled into a vehicle together with other parts. In theory, the two can be so friendly, and then look at the manufacturing process from scratch, and really think that cars are "planted".

Where will the biomaterial be used?

Although the car looks is not big, but actually an average car will use about 40 to 50 square meters of fabric, it is mainly used for interior decoration, panels, outsourcing and sandwich filled, so we it is necessary to know where is the biological materials will be used.

Generally speaking, there are three main applications of biomaterials in automobiles: one is to make wooden interior, cotton textiles and leather seats, etc. The biology-based raw materials are processed into polymers, which have similar properties to traditional petroleum base plastics. Third, biomaterials are used as reinforced materials or filler materials and resins as composites, which can be used in some damping insulation. Now, of course, there are a number of research institutes that are trying to make biological materials more complex, using some of the overlays.

The last two sentences

To say what are the disadvantages of current biological materials, the biggest problem is the strength is not big enough, although on the interior problem is not big, but if you want to do the cover body frame that even difficult also is very big, LINA are lost in this way. But it is also good to have self-driving technology, which is likely to be widely used in a decade if development goes well, and biomaterials are ripe for development at that time. Finally, don't forget the 3D printing technology, compared with the simple substitution of traditional metal materials processing technology, 3D printing and biological materials, more can make the car "live".