Sustainable Core Technology

One change can bring many advantages. With Liteback® core technology for thermoplastic flooring such as LVT/SPC & WPC, you can use raw materials more efficently while simultaneously making your floors lighter. Thereby you can spare the enviroment as well as the back of the installers.

How does it work?

By using a grooving unit, grooves are milled on the backside of the floorboard. The grooving unit can be integrated in the regular production process thereby eliminating the need for extra handling of the panels. The material that is removed in the process is recycled back into the production process, thereby reducing material consumption with up to 20%.

Feel the difference

The technology involves the removal of material from the core, thereby reducing the weight of the final product with up to 20%. All handling of the product thus becomes easier and more efficient: from delivery out of the production unit to the handling of the products at the time of purchase and during installation by the final user.

With lighter products, every shipping container can be filled with more square meters of flooring, in turn saving the environment by reducing the number of required transports.

The weight of a package containing 1.8 m2 of a typical 5 mm LVT product can be reduced with up to 3.5 kg when implementing Liteback.

Environmental impact: Sawings in numbers

Based on the assumption that approximately 350 million m2LVT/SPC and WPC flooring is projected to beeing sold in Europe and North America; what would the environmental benefits be if this volume would have been made with Liteback®?

We did the math! The numbers speak for themselves.

610,000 tons - By making raw material utilization more efficient, more than 610,000 tons of raw material would be saved and 400,000 less tons CO2 would be emitted in the atmosphere.

130,000 deliveries - Lower product weight enables increased freight density, thereby eliminating more than 130,000 deliveries from the supply chain.

495,000 tons - Total CO2 emission would be reduced with 495,000 tons: the equivalent to the annual emission from more than 120,000 passenger cars in Europe and North America combined.

38,000,000 boxes - Each box of typically 1.8 m2 contains 8 panels. With Liteback, you could load two additional panels in each box without adding any weight thereby saving packing material.

Technical specifications

Speed
Up to 70 m/min

Cutting depth
0-4 mm

Installation
Inline or standalone

Product thickness
3-8 mm

Confirmed Performance

Besides long-term testing in a heavy traffic production environment, we have succesfully conducted several standard tests to ensure that Liteback® provides all the benifits while maintaining product appearance and quality.

Castor Chair - 25 000 revolutions

Standard castor chair test (EN 425:2002)
At elevated temperature (50˚C)
With uneven subfloor and cavities/protrusions

Dimensional stability & Curling

ISO 23999 - 6 hours, 80˚C
Cycling 23˚C to 50˚C for 2 months

Real-life testing

Hallway installation, high traffic area (on-going since 2011)
Electrical floor heating test (3 years)
Workshop entrance, high traffic, heavy loads (on-going since 2015)

Indentation & Static Load

ASTM F1914 - According to ASTM F1700 & ASTM F3261
ISO 24343-1 - Residual Indentation
ASTM F970 - Static Load