Optimising formulations | materials development
Winning formula: Polymaterials speeds up compound development
It is the best of times; it is the worst of times. Compa- nies looking to develop polymer blends and compounds with a specifi c set of properties have never had such a wide array of polymers and additives to choose from— and that’s good. What is bad is that fi nding out what are the best combinations of materials to use, and in which quantities, requires considerable expertise and, in all probability, time in the laboratory that can easily run into months. Polymaterials is taking a lot of the time, and much of
the expertise, out of the equation. It’s doing it with a heady mix of combinatorial experimentation, design of experiments (DoE), and a form of high throughput screening (HTS) developed specifi cally for compounds. Combinatorial experimentation identifi es desired components, which in the jargon are called leads or hits. Integrated mixing, injection moulding, testing and
data evaluation then delivers accurate results very quickly. In a fi rst round, the detailed infl uence of individual components on desired properties is detected; in a second round, optimal compositions can be determined. Not only is the system fast, it also uncovers material
combinations with properties that most likely would never have been predicted using traditional research methods. Polymaterials was founded in 1999, and is headed by
www.compoundingworld.com
Peter Mapleston reports on how Polymaterials is using innovative techniques to accelerate the
optimisation of polymer blends and compound formulations
two polymer chemists, Gerhard Maier (CTO) and Jürgen Stebani (CEO). It now employs around 35 people at two locations in Germany. Its headquarters in the Innova- park in Kaufbeuren houses chemical laboratories where it synthesizes monomers, polymers, initiators and the like, and also carries out its X-Plorator HTC high-throughput screening system for compounds, while in the Leverkusen Chempark it has polymeriza- tion pilot plant for production trials. The X-Plorator HTC system, which echoes HTS
systems already well-established in the pharmaceutical industry, was developed several years ago in order to reduce considerably the time taken to go from an idea for a new or refi ned compound through to the fi nal recipe. Even with a bench-top laboratory compounding
July 2014 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 11
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