Quin McNamara

Quin began her career with Dow in 2017 in sales within the Dow Construction Chemicals business, serving markets across the commercial and residential sectors. Today she is responsible for creating and executing the market strategies for various consumer and electronics market segments as well as the North America regional strategy for LuxSense silicone synthetic leather.

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Presentation

Silicone-organic hybrid materials for unlocking design creativity

LuxSense silicone leather is the first synthetic leather (PU, PVC or silicone) that competes with natural leather on performance and exceeds it on sustainability. A multi-layer composite, LuxSense is designed to unlock design creativity and can be used on existing processing equipment. Several technical challenges were overcome using fundamental science to understand the underlying mechanisms and create a comprehensive yet elegant solution via chemistry. Key to this are silicone-organic hybrid materials that combine the advantages of silicones (aesthetics, flame, stain, chemical and UV resistance, durability) with those of organics (outstanding abrasion resistance) in a cost-effective, sustainable (lower VOC, free of plasticizer, DMF and harmful solvents) system. As a result, LuxSense has become the world’s first silicone luxury leather approved and commercialized in automotive interiors. It meets automotive interior specifications, including car seating applications, and exhibits the unique features of 4S: sense of sight, smell, sensation and sustainability.