Duroplast facts for kids

Duroplast is a unique kind of plastic! It's made by mixing two other plastics, formica and bakelite, with strong fibres. These fibres can be things like cotton or wool, or even glass fibres. This mix makes Duroplast super strong and light.

What Was Duroplast Used For?

Duroplast was famously used in Eastern Europe, especially by a car company called VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau. They used it to make the body of a very popular car called the Trabant. Imagine a car body made of plastic!

Before the Trabant, Duroplast was also used in other cars like the IFA F8 and the AWZ P70. Besides cars, it was also used to make things like suitcases and even toilet seats.

Cool Facts About Duroplast

Duroplast is known for being light, flexible, and really strong. What's even cooler is that it was made from recycled materials! The Trabant was one of the first cars to have a body made from recycled stuff. They used cotton waste from Russia and special resins from East Germany's dye industry.

Because it's made in a press, similar to how steel is shaped, it was quite easy and cheap to produce.

What Happened to Old Duroplast?

Even though Duroplast was great for making cars, it had a problem: it's hard to recycle completely. If you burn it, it creates harmful fumes. This made getting rid of old Trabant car bodies a bit tricky.

There were even funny stories about farm animals like pigs or sheep trying to eat Duroplast!

Good news though! A company in Berlin found a solution. They developed a special kind of bacterium that can "eat" a Trabant car body in about 20 days, leaving behind only compost. Also, in recent years, old Duroplast has been crushed and mixed into cement blocks to build pavements.

Images for kids

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  The Trabant 601 car body is made of Duroplast