What a material has to survive differs from one industry to the next. So do the specifications, the test protocols and the regulations that sit behind them.
Applications
Sectors we work with
If your industry is not listed, it is still worth asking. What matters is whether the problem type matches what we do.
Automotive and components
Automotive asks more of a material than almost any other sector. A part may need to stay flexible at minus forty, hold its shape at a hundred and twenty, and not crack under vibration for a decade.
Engine mounts and vibration damping elastomers
Seals for fuel and oil lines with chemical resistance requirements
EPDM compounds for door and glazing seals
Odour and emission control, VOC and fogging, in interior trim
Thermal and electrical insulation for electric vehicle applications
Energy and electrical
The job of an insulation material is to make sure nothing happens for a very long time. That quiet kind of performance is one of the harder things to engineer for.
Cable sheathing and insulation compounds
Halogen free flame retardant, HFFR, systems
UV and ozone resistance for outdoor installations
Seals for transformers and switchgear
Long life design for renewable energy equipment
Packaging
Packaging usually has two goals that pull against each other: barrier performance and recyclability. Narrowing that conflict is where most of the work is.
Food contact compliant formulation and verification
Improvement of oxygen and moisture barrier performance
Conversion from multi-layer structures to mono-material
Increasing the share of recycled content
Widening the heat seal window
Construction and infrastructure
Replacing a material that has been buried underground or fixed to a facade is expensive. In this sector the design criterion is service life.
Waterproofing profiles and joint seals
Pipe, fitting and connector compounds
Hydrolytic and UV ageing resistance
Mechanical performance in flooring and facade applications
Compatibility testing with construction chemicals
Medical and hygiene
There is no margin here. The material has to work, and the fact that it works has to be documented in a way a regulator will accept.
Material selection against biocompatibility requirements
Performance verification after autoclave, EtO or gamma sterilisation
Assessment of extractables and leachables
Cost and performance balance in single use products
Establishing a traceable supply chain
Appliances and consumer goods
In a consumer product, how something feels affects its perceived value as much as how it performs. Surface, sound and smell are engineering problems here.
Surface quality and colour stability
Identifying and removing sources of odour and emission
Resistance to detergents and cleaning chemicals
Friction and wear behaviour in moving parts
Material rationalisation to reduce cost
What carries across
The sector changes, the method does not
The advantage of working across industries is seeing that a problem solved in one of them is often still open in another.
An ageing protocol that became standard in automotive can be useful in packaging. A flame retardancy approach developed for cable compounds can transfer to a construction application. We use that route regularly, within the limits of what each customer's confidentiality allows.
Reading a specification
Turning a customer specification into an actual technical requirement is usually the most consequential step in a project.
Design of experiments
Whatever the sector, optimisation without understanding how the variables interact tends to produce a result that does not hold.
Quality plan
Every solution is handed over with acceptance criteria that can be measured on your own equipment.
Confidentiality
What we learn from one customer does not move to another project, in any form.
Tell us what you are trying to solve
Whether you have a full development brief or a single production problem, the starting point is the same. Send us the application conditions and we will tell you what is realistic.
