BASF announced that a new jointly produced lightweight load floor composite has been recognized by the Toyota Motor Corp. with the Technology and Development Award, one of the automaker’s highest supplier honors.

WYANDOTTE, MI – BASF announced that a new jointly produced lightweight load floor composite has been recognized by the Toyota Motor Corp. with the Technology and Development Award, one of the automaker’s highest supplier honors.

The innovative design created by BASF and Concept Industries is a sandwich panel consisting of natural fiber skins bonded together with Elastopor, a lightweight, poured-in-place BASF rigid polyurethane foam core. The product delivers low-weight, high-strength performance with sustainable manufacturing and production efficiencies. In addition, the natural fiber boards from Concept Industries, together with the rigid polyurethane foam chemistry from BASF, form a composite that exceeds the performance requirements of Toyota’s Lexus RX350 load floor, upon which the technology launched in late 2010.

Concept Industries was recognized by Toyota Motor Corp. for the new deckboard material at Toyota’s 2011 Global Supplier Convention in Nagoya, Japan. The honor recognizes top performance innovation and development during the past year.