At Aircraft Interiors Expo 2024, Recaro Aircraft Seating showed off their Crystal Cabin Award nominated seat – R Sphere. Let’s take a look, as there is a lot here to digest – and consider for the future of seating.
Sustainability is a big thing in aviation as the industry seeks to decarbonise. But what about the interiors and seats?
It’s all to easy to use a thermoplastic to form a seat part, but could that part come from other material? What kind of new materials could be used to address that part? Which processes do we have to rethink and improve and where can we also maybe reduce functionality?
Recaro conducted a lifecycle assessment looking in all the different areas from CO2 emissions that are produced with the seat and service but also energy consumption, up to the end of life treatment of the product.
Its first output is R Sphere.
Four materials have been selected to go forward in the first part of R Sphere
- Real Wood
- Recycled PVC
- Recycled Foam
- Fishing nets
Where could they be used?
Well, foam – inserts into seats. These can be from old mattresses (and Recaro was at pains to note these were cleaned extensively).
Real wood can be used as inlays and decor finishes, whilst Recycled PVC can be used as needed.
Finally, fishing nets? Where can you use those? … If you guessed the seat literature pocket, you’re correct.
It’s a good use of mass plastic ocean waste that can be repurposed, cut up and deployed into a second life after it’s finished being at sea.
Onwards
These aren’t Recaro’s only goals with R Sphere, as there is much more to go. Cork, Cactus Leather and Sustainable Compostable for seat parts are on the list of materials to upcycle as time goes on.
Cactus Leather is an easy candidate for a seat cover. Cork could be used for a sustainable bumper on the seat, whilst a sustainable composite (eg a sugar cane composite) could be used for a rear seat cover.
And of course, this helps to the path of zero waste as the parts are recycled at the end of life.
Towards Certification
Recaro Aircraft Seating is pushing forward with R Sphere, with the company aiming to certify it in October 2024, with it ready to fly. That’s an aggressive timetable and shows how much work Recaro has done since they showed off this concept last year.
There’s a lot to look forward to
Recyclability of seating is a possibility – with a lot of newer seats claiming high levels of recyclability for the end of product life (with glue being one of the things that is hard to break down). Recaro has taken a slightly different approach asking the question – what about at the beginning of life?
That introduces questions – including how to certify such as product for use on an aircraft – something Recaro will be looking at in its certification run.
What excites me a little more is how these concepts could be taken, and extended across a product line – for example, real wood inlays could look great on tables as well as seat markers. The use of the fishing net, again, will remove a lot of bungee-cord-style seat literature pockets (and be a little stronger to boot).
As for recycled foams – well, let’s hope all the bugs are well and truly dead. If the foams are lightweight enough, they could easily go into modern seats.
For R Sphere, whilst the seat is very much an economy class seat, the concepts have the possibility to make big changes across the Recaro product stack in the future to help aircraft seating be a bit more sustainable.
Disclosures:
- Economy Class and Beyond was a guest of Recaro Aircraft Seating at a pre-show event at Aircraft Interiors Expo 2o24
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