Armstrong Develops Corn-Based Resilient Tile
Boiled down, says Dominic Rice, Armstrong floor product management vice president, the renewable polymer consists of domestically grown corn. But not just any corn.
Rice says heating and mixing it with pigment and limestone filler yields a price-competitive tile that cuts reliance on fossil fuels, incorporates more recycled material and emits fewer volatile organic compounds.
Migrations BBT and BioStride will be available to the commercial market in the first quarter of 2008.
Crafted in 28 colors that can be coordinated with the Armstrong product portfolio, the tiles are billed as more than five times as impact resistant and more than 2½ times as resistant to cracking as traditional offerings.
BioBased Tile costs about 60% less than linoleum and about 30% more than vinyl composition tile, according to Armstrong.
Rice says Migrations represents a big departure from composition tile, which is made with 13% polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, a petroleum-derived product.
The new tiles are designed for commercial markets such as schools, hospitals, stores and, to a lesser extent, offices.
"This is a game changer for Armstrong" and for its customers, Rice says. "We made it easy for them to go green."
Martin Flaherty, an Atlanta-based environmental consultant who worked with Armstrong on the project, recalls cutting his Earth Day teeth years ago as "an angry kid on the mall in
But in the 2000s, he says, chief financial officers have replaced the "vocal fringe" in driving corporate greening.
"We're seeing a complete attitude change," in part because green buildings save money over the long run, Flaherty says.
Now, commercial floor tiles promise to do that, too.
There are a billion square feet of the things in
He says customers opting to cover lots of space with environmentally sustainable flooring have until now pretty much been limited to linoleum, which is made out of such environmentally inert substances as ground limestone and linseed oil.
Two years ago, Armstrong charged its scientists with finding an economically viable alternative.
At the minimum, Rice says, the candidate would have to match the performance of traditional offerings. Its manufacture would have to be possible at existing plants.
"It was a real technical challenge for [the scientists]."
The typical PVC and plasticized resin binders that the company began evaluating two decades ago held little promise of an environmental revolution.
And so scientists invented something new, explains Jeff Ross, Armstrong Floor Products manager of research innovation.
"From a chemist's perspective," he says, "this was a dream project."
The effort yielded the BioStride recipe, for which Armstrong has filed five patent applications.
BioBased Tile consists of about 75% limestone, 10% recycled limestone and 14% BioStride, according to Ross.
Armstrong says contractors or developers who use it can earn green building credits.
The new resilient flooring also meets FloorScore indoor emissions limits.
Related Topics:Armstrong Flooring