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According to the Nihon Kagaku Shimbun, DuPont Teijin Advanced Papers Ltd., which is part of the Japanese Teijin Group, has developed a composite material board made of carbon fiber-reinforced meta-aramid paper and thermoplastic resin. Since this new type of composite material panel can absorb more than twice as much impact energy using only carbon fiber, DuPont Teijin Advanced Papers is developing various applications for it, including in the automotive industry. The company proposes here to use this new composite panel in crash boxes and other automotive components that can take advantage of its potential impact-absorbing capabilities. To produce the newly developed paper, DuPont Teijin Advanced Papers Ltd’s proprietary meta-aramid paper is coated with a composite material made of polyamide 6 (PA6) and carbon fibers. This provides a mechanism for absorbing impact energy by destroying the paper layers. This product was developed in collaboration with the University of Tokyo. To achieve the optimal design, a total of 36 layers of aramid paper sheets and composite material sheets were stacked together. This led developers to find that a sandwich structure using eight layers of carbon fiber sheets on each side of the eight-layer aramid paper exhibits the best performance, with an impact energy absorption more than twice that of a single CFRP sheet. Since only thermoplastic resins are used in the resin components, the new product can be shaped into the desired form through hot pressing. During the product development phase, carbon fiber boards are processed using the same papermaking method as that used for aramid paper, and carbon fibers are mixed with PA6 fibers to create carbon paper. However, depending on the application, carbon plates produced by other manufacturing methods can also be used.