FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Compo-SiL®,
the Best Vegan Leather Fabric for Unlimited Textile and Product
Design Freedom
Eco-friendly
Leather Alternative Gives Rise to Innovation in Product and Fashion
Design
Hsinchu,
Taiwan, May 14, 2021 - Taiwanese manufacturer General
Silicones (GS) announces its patented Compo-SiL®
vegan leather fabric overcomes the barrier of silicone rubber's
chemical inertness. The patented technology allows textile and product
designers to quickly adhere the vegan leather material to textiles,
metals, and other surfaces using standard adhesives.
Patented
Layer for Fast and Secure Silicone Leather Adhesion
Untreated silicone rubber-based leather is hard to apply to any
surfaces due to its chemical inertness. Thanks to over 50 years of
silicone manufacturing experience, GS developed a technology to add a
micrometer thin layer of water-based Polyurethane (PU) material on the
inner side of the silicone leather.
The PU layer serves as an interface to further process the vegan
leather with standard adhesives to textiles or different substrates.
As the sole purpose of the PU layer is to allow adhesion, it is
ultra-thin. Thus effectively minimizing the PU plastic content of Compo-SiL®
vegan
leather to a significantly low value.
Outer
Vegan Layer Matches Natural Leather
GS modifies the outer layer of the vegan leather to the customer's
specifications. Modifications include embossment, colors, and thickness
of the fabric to match the touch and feel of natural leather products
and additional requirements of the planned application.
Environmentally
Friendly Silicone-based Leather
Silicone has already been proven to be harmless to the environment. The
solvent-free production process of GS silicone leather has a low
ecological footprint and does not create or use dangerous chemicals
during production, use, or disposal. Compo-SiL® vegan leather is not
only an attractive alternative to traditional faux and animal leather
but as well to other vegan leather products.
Extending
Product Lifetime, A Mind Set for Circular Economy
Slowing down the aging of products and prolonging the product
replacement cycle adds significant economic and ecological benefits to
final products.
The properties of silicone give Compo-SiL®
leather far better durability than other leather alternatives. The
excellent combination of silicone's chemical and mechanical
characteristics, like excellent thermal stability, high water
repellency, resistance to ozone, UV, and other oxidative degradations,
make Compo-SiL®
vegan leather a superior material.
Protecting products and apparel with Compo-SiL®
can prolong product lifetime to a much larger extent than plastic-based
products would do.
Contrasting
Properties of Compo-SiL® Vegan Leather
Silicone-based vegan leather products offer distinct benefits compared
to natural leather, plastic, and alternatives with high PU content:
- Outstanding
Inherited Silicone Properties: Starting from
durability, excellent elastic properties, chemical inertness, and low
carbon footprint, make Compo-SiL®
vegan leather an excellent leather
alternative.
- Functionalization:
Having silicone as the principal
constituent of Compo-SiL®
vegan leather allows the material to be
easily adapted to incur properties like flame retardancy and
anti-bacterial
qualities.
- Surface
Modification: Compo-SiL®
vegan leather can be made
with diverse colored surfaces and textures depending upon the
requirements. Glossy and matt surface properties are easily obtained
along with unique textures.
- Design
Freedom: Starting with sustainable, eco-friendly
silicone material and the possibilities of numerous surface
modifications and functionalizations, Compo-SiL®
vegan leather gives
designers enhanced design freedom to bring their conceptual design into
a sustainable vegan product for any industry.
- Textile R2R
Manufacturing: Compo-SiL®
vegan leather
supports roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing. Production can be scaled up
quickly with growing demand. Integration of Compo-SiL®
vegan leather
with other textiles is achieved using exiting R2R processes without
requiring changes to existing production lines or supply chain changes
by the textile manufacturer.
- Seamless
Electronic Integration: Flexible Hybrid
Electronics is one of the fastest-growing markets that require
sustainable, lightweight, decorative, customizable, flexible, and
durable materials. Compo-SiL®
vegan leather can be modified to provide
a smart touch surface, and the integration with electronics is now easy
due to the PU interfacial layer.
Sourcing managers and manufacturers wanting to know more about vegan
leather products can contact the sales team of General Silicones at [email protected]
for more information or visit www.compo-sil.com.
About
General Silicones
General Silicones (GS) was founded in 1970 in Taipei, Taiwan, and is
now represented worldwide – including Europe, China, Japan, and
South-East Asian countries. GS is a major distributor of silicone
materials and an active silicone products manufacturer with ISO 9001,
IATF 16949, and ISO 14001 certifications. The company has manufacturing
plants in Hsinchu, Taiwan; Wujiang, China; and Bac Giang, Vietnam. With
decades of experience in this field, GS has the ability and capacity to
provide a wide range of silicone products for many industries,
including medical, automobile, consumer products, electronics, and IT.
GS listed on Taiwan's Emerging Stock Market in 2011 (TPEx: 4730). For
more information about GS, please visit www.generalsilicones.com.
For more information on Compo-SiL®,
please visit www.compo-sil.com