Behind the children’s chair Parupu which is launched today at the Milan Furniture Fair by Södra Cell, Claesson Koivisto Rune and STFI-Packforsk, lie many years of research. The material for this chair – a new composite material based on cellulose and biodegradable PLA – has been developed within the Cluster Research programme at STFI-Packforsk.
A new product is usually the result of many years of research and development before it is launched on the market. Long-term and pioneering research in completely new fields involves high risks. To reduce these risks and share the investment costs, groupings of companies come together at STFI-Packforsk in a collaborative research called the Cluster Research Programme. The generic knowledge from this research can be utilised as platforms for further product and process development.
The new chair Parupu, shown at the Milan Furniture Fair, is made from a brand new composite material based on pulp and PLA, a biodegradable plastic made from corn starch or sugar canes. This renewable material was developed for a period of four years in an STFI-Packforsk research cluster,
New Fibres New Materials. It is expected to be employed to advantage in a wide range of applications within the furniture, automotive, packaging and construction industries, among others.
A first product, a so called demonstrator of the material, called
Kofesen, has already been shown at the 2007 Furniture Fair in Milan, in which STFI-Packforsk participated together with the Swedish University College of Arts, Crafts and Design. Kofesen was made to show off the many possibilities of the material, without any limits on the imagination.
The next step was to develop a real large-sized product. The development of a new demonstrator started with a master thesis by Joakim Nygren, a student at the Royal Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Mikael Lindström, STFI-Packforsk, and a joint project between STFI-Packforsk, Södra Cell and the design firm Claesson Koivisto Rune, with support from VINNOVA (The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems).
“The new demonstrator turned out to be a chair made in a light shell construction, produced from moulded pulp (cellulose mixed with PLA-fibres) and hot pressed for final strength and finish,” says Project Manager Birgitta Alm.
“The paper pulp chair is an excellent example of how STFI-Packforsk works as a partner in our customers’ innovation processes. It also demonstrates the benefits from joint research work and how they can turn into new innovative products and processes,” says Helena Vollmer, Marketing Director at STFI-Packforsk.