Project Lead: Professor Justin Perry
Institution: Northumbria University.
Partners: Synthomer.
Amount: £ 52k
Scheme: Commercialising Innovation.
Theme/Area: Integration into End Use Sectors/Net Zero/Circular Economy Transition (eg. products, supply chain, end-users).
Brief Description: This project enables the scaling up of a novel, sustainable polymer, a direct replacement for a petrochemically derived version widely used in the coatings and composites industry. We have applied for a patent on this material, and it is currently being tested by three companies, one of which is designing a scale-up polymerisation process to make it available to the worldwide footwear supply chain for manufacture. To facilitate scale-up development and continue providing generous samples for client testing, we need to develop a rapid multiliter synthesis of the monomer using a newly purchased reactor.