Acella® Eco

Automotive interior materials from Benecke-Kaliko protect people, the environment, and the global climate.

Sustainable mobility is an issue the auto industry is currently devoting more attention to than any other. The challenge: While remaining just as powerful as at present and offering the same level of comfort and convenience, future cars will be expected to greatly curb CO₂ emissions. And the manufacturing process will have to be as ecological as possible. For their part, motorists are interested in protecting not only the environment but their own health, too. After all, the average person spends two and a half years of her or his life in a car. Accordingly, people want vehicles to be a comfortable and healthful enhancement of their quality-of-life. Benecke-Kaliko is thus doing something to make people feel comfortable all around in their cars. Its new Acella® Eco is a skin-friendly, low-emission soft trim material. That means it is kind to both people and the environment.

Skin is the number one and largest sensory organ. Measuring roughly two square meters, it exercises a number of vital functions. It is ultra-sensitive, yet exposed to the most diverse environmental influences. A genuine multi-talent and a true high-performer, skin protects the body from germs as well as from the heat and the cold. It absorbs medicine and hormones, excretes toxins and stores nutrients and water. Extended time spent in a vehicle should not leave passengers on the verge of jumping out of their skins. To guard against this, developers at Benecke-Kaliko have engaged in research, conducted tests and developed innovative soft trim materials. The Acella® Eco product line guarantees a healthful interior for all vehicle occupants.

Enhanced riding comfort for all

Acella® Eco Green is one of Benecke-Kaliko’s especially health-friendly products. It graces the vehicle’s seating, console, and door inserts and provides a gentle surface ambience for skin contact. The material is suitable for prolonged, direct contact with human skin. Even babies, with their especially sensitive skin, are not at risk with this material. The new soft-trim material was tested for 100 parameters of relevance to human health – with excellent results. The material has obtained Class 1 certification, which means it satisfies the most stringent Oeko-Tex® Standard 100 requirements. This level of certification is otherwise conferred solely on materials in direct contact with a baby’s ultra-sensitive skin. But it is not just the "small fry" that benefit from the product's outstanding properties. Completely free of allergens*, the new soft-trim guarantees all vehicle occupants – and especially those with delicate skin and allergies – a healthful skin feeling. The soft trim’s advantages are particularly noticeable on hot summer days, when more skin is exposed because motorists and passengers tend to be more lightly dressed. Transpiration can then trigger increased transfer of substances to the skin. To prevent substances from causing bodily and dermatological irritations, Benecke-Kaliko refrains from using antimony and aggravating heavy metals in Acella® Eco Green. Acella® Eco Green is already a standard feature in the new Volvo XC60, which the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association has added to the list of vehicles safe for people suffering from allergies.

Healthy passenger compartment

Everyone is familiar with the typical smell of a new car: clean, pristine and unused. There’s no odor, though, when Benecke-Kaliko products are employed. This is good news for those in the car. For the company’s materials release virtually no emissions or odors. This not only makes for good interior air quality. It also helps protect the global climate. Acella®Eco is an absolute forerunner in this respect. The use of any solvents and plasticizer systems known to give off emissions has been reduced to a bare minimum. In accordance with the respective customer demands, the resulting VOC (volatile organic compounds) values undercut the limits defined for seat applications by American and European OEMs.

Using renewable raw materials to protect the environment and the global climate

In developing materials, Benecke-Kaliko makes a point of upping its contribution to resource conservation by going even a step further. At least 25 percent of the raw materials going into Acella® Eco soft trim material are not petroleum-based. In the future, there is even to be a material – Acella® Eco Natural – with a renewable raw material content as high as 50 percent.

Designed Green

All Benecke-Kaliko products with the “Designed Green” label offer a host of healthful, eco-friendly advantages for the greatest possible benefit of people, the environment and the global climate.

All soft-trim materials in the Acella® product family:

• satisfy the highest requirements of the automotive industry
• are free of plasticizers that may pose a danger to the human reproductive system
• can be labeled low-emission
• are free of heavy-metal-based stabilizers
• have a roughly 25 percent non-petroleum-based raw material content

Acella® Eco products protect people, the environment, and the global climate.

Acella® Eco Green

• guarantees high human ecological quality as defined for Class I of the
  Oeko-Tex® Standard 100
• is suitable for prolonged skin contact
• is free of contact allergens*
• contains no antimony
• minimizes emissions
• is used in the passenger compartment of the Volvo XC60, which the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association has added to the list of cars safe for people with allergies

*as per Volvo ENV0006

Acella® Eco Natural

• has a roughly 50-percent renewable raw material content
• minimizes emissions
• contains no antimony
• is free of heavy-metal-based stabilizers
• complies with Class 1 of the Oeko-Tex® Standard 100
• is slated to be marketed as of fall 2010