Duroplast

A man standing on a Trabant, a car made largely of Duroplast.[1]

Duroplast is a composite thermosetting plastic, a close relative of formica and bakelite. It is a resin plastic reinforced with fibers (either cotton or wool) making it a fiber-reinforced plastic similar to glass-reinforced plastic.

Uses

Duroplast was used by Central European automobile manufacturer VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau to produce the body of the mass-produced Trabant motor car.

The product was first used in the body of the IFA F8 and later also the AWZ P70 or Zwickau P70 and the Trabant. It was also used to make suitcases.

Properties

Duroplast is light, flexible, and strong. It is made of recycled material, cotton waste and phenol resins.^{[1][dubious – discuss]} Because it can be made in a press similar to shaping steel, it is more suitable for volume car production than fibreglass.

Disposal

Duroplast cannot be further recycled, and burning it produces toxic fumes, so disposing of the bodies of old Trabants is a problem. However, its components are edible, and there are stories of pigs, sheep or other farm animals consuming duroplast^{[citation needed]}. This is depicted in the movie Black Cat White Cat and described in a song by the Serbian band Atheist Rap.

A Berlin biotechnology company claims that it has developed a solution to the duroplast problem: a bacterium that will eat a Trabant in 20 days and leave only compost.^[2]

The same Zwickau plant that started making the Trabant went on to find a solution for duroplast disposal in the 1990s. After removing the glass and engine, the duroplast was shredded and encased into cement blocks for pavement construction. This was featured in an episode of the program Scientific American Frontiers on the American PBS TV channel.^[1]

Public perception

The use of duroplast in Trabants gave rise to an urban myth that Trabant is made of corrugated cardboard,^[3] as evidenced in numerous GDR jokes about Trabant.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Scientific American Frontiers.
2. ^ Kumar, Arvind (2004), Environment Contamination & Bioreclamation, APH Publishing, p. 32, ISBN 9788176485876, http://books.google.com/books?id=FN8mifeULHcC&pg=PA32. 
3. ^ Tony Davis (2005) "Lemon!: Sixty Heroic Automotive Failures", ISBN 1560257571, Chapter "Trabant P601, p.156-158