Business aircraft cabin interiors specialist F/List on Monday announced joining BioForS, a research consortium established in 2018 and focused on replacing conventional aviation cabin interior materials with renewable ones. The consortium includes more than half a dozen high-tech materials specialty companies and research agencies. F/LIST, a family-owned Austrian company with global facilities, adds its expertise in aircraft engineering, certification, and material development.

"We aim to make aviation more sustainable, bringing green and renewable structural materials into the aircraft cabin,” said F/List director of research and development Patrick Domnanich.

Members are researching the production of bio-based organic sheets for the visible parts in aircraft interiors. These so-called organo sheets are fiber composites with good mechanical properties that can be produced quickly and easily. But cabin interior materials must be able to withstand extreme loads, as light as possible, and fire retardant, along with having a look and feel that meets high-end customers’ approval. Therefore, the organo sheets the consortium is developing are equipped with a specially developed bio-based fire-retardant decorative layer that includes real wood veneer.

The materials are biodegradable vegetable oil-based polymers in the form of films, which incorporate flame retardant and natural flax fibers as a matrix. In addition to base material development, BioForS is involved in designing composite assemblies and setting up efficient manufacturing and molding processes for renewable interiors elements.