Novel and Playful Foldable Trivet Made of PPSU

German start-up company oha-Design, which develops innovative home, kitchen and lifestyle products, opted to use Ultrason P PPSU  (polyphenylsulfone) from BASF, Florham Park, N.J., to design Krempel, a simple yet technologically sophisticated household item.

Krempel is a foldable trivet which consists of four flexible, flat plastic strips, which are connected to each other with rivet joints. By pushing or pulling the original flat shape, it can be turned inside out or bent in a variety of ways to create stable, three-dimensional shapes like a circle, pillow or fish. Ultrason P PPSU ensures that the trivet always retains its shape, is flame retardant and can be easily cleaned in a dishwasher.

The playful adaptability also has a function: The Krempel can be adapted to different saucepan sizes and shapes with diameters between 13 and 28 cm. In its flat starting shape, the Krempel is designed to fit in conventional drawers – or can simply be hung up on a kitchen unit.

In addition to Ultrason P, the trivet also consists of stainless steel rivets and silicone disks, which make it slip-resistant. Due to the PPSU, the trivet is characterized by high-temperature resistance, good flexibility and recovery, very good notched impact strength and high chemical resistance. The multi-functional trivet cannot only be employed for domestic use, but also in catering and camping – just like Ultrason P, which is suitable for durable and safe components in household appliances such as refrigerators, ovens, air fryers, food processors, coffee machines and juicers, but also for catering and microwave dishes: It is temperature resistant up to 220°C/428F, tough and shatter-proof, yet light and flexible as well as resistant to oils and cleaning agents. Ultrason P is approved for food contact and can also be processed into transparent or opaque components such as refrigerator drawers or display covers.

Said Andreas Anetseder, owner of oha-Design and inventor of the Krempel, “By the time it was ready for serial production, I had learned a lot about plastics – and also that, even with such an apparently simple design object, everything has to fit together perfectly: the properties and thickness of the materials, the diameter of the disks and rivets as well as the exact processing in injection molding. Only then can the trivet be turned into different shapes in this astonishing way, as if by magic.” Anetseder noted that the product’s name has also contributed to its success. “There’s always room for a bit of irony. The name Krempel is not only derived from the German verb ‘krempeln’ meaning ‘to fold’ or 'to roll something up', but also from the noun ‘Krempel’, meaning useless household items or stuff. Hopefully that’s not the case for the Krempel trivet, even if you don't just use it in the kitchen, but simply fool around with it,” said Anetseder.