TPO Dynamics in Automotive: The Development of Soft TPO for Better Recycle

TPOs based on polypropylene has been dominating materials in hard automotive parts such as in bumper fascia, instrumental panel and door trim panel owing to their variety of advantages compared to engineering plastics and steels for years. Recently as environmental regulations related to recycle have been strengthened, the use of TPOs in soft automotive parts such as instrument panel skin and door trim skin is being required much more.. Therefore, in this study, we' d like to give an overview of soft TPOs and introduce soft TPO materials requirement and preferable materials composition by vacuum thermoforming and powder slush molding, respectively.