New Samsung joint venture could see plastic phones replaced with carbon-fiber

A subsidiary company of Samsung, Samsung Petrochemical, has signed a joint venture deal with SGL Group in order to “develop new industrial and electronic applications with carbon composite materials for Samsung and the Korean market”. Samsung Petrochemical makes a whole host of consumer products from a range of chemicals, with an emphasis on plastics and solvents. With this new venture, however, we could see carbon-fiber make its way to mobile devices.

There’s no word from Samsung of this actually happening, but a smartphone with some well designed carbon-fiber — think Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 kinda style on a smartphone — would no doubt be a sizable change from the cheap-feeling plastic that we’re used to seeing from them.