Academics and industrialists have joined forces to give the plastics industry in Northern Ireland a commercial advantage with the establishment of a dedicated research centre at Queen's University.
The Polymer Processing Research Centre at Queen's is a "one-stop shop" for plastics manufacturers developing new products or facing production problems, according to the centre's general manger, Mr Peter Grant. "What we are trying to do is link the university and industry together."
The centre was established earlier this year with a three-year £1.5 million grant from the Industrial Research and Technology Unit with support from the European Regional Development Fund. Queen's added a further £500,000 and the £2 million was used to buy equipment and employ an initial 15 research and administrative staff.
The centre is able to duplicate production conditions as they would apply on the factory floor. "We have our own pilot plant and full-scale production equipment that duplicates what they have in their plants," Mr Grant said. The object was to establish the best production conditions for a company facing problems or for the development of new or modified products.
A recent project involved a company that manufactured plastic yoghurt pots and wanted to change to a cheaper raw material. Such a change could present great difficulties, however, explained the centre's director, Prof Roy Crawford.
Modern plastic polymers are highly complex chemicals, he said. Their properties could be altered by additives such as colourants or anti-static agents which were used for mouldings in the computer industry. Variations in the moulding process such as temperature or pressure changes can also disrupt production.
The centre has an analytical laboratory for studying the plastics and how the polymers perform on the moulding equipment. Staff tried to identify the best plastics and methods and then transferred this to the client company.
The centre was linked to the university's chemical engineering department but there were also strong ties to mechanical engineering, Prof Crawford said. Having researchers within Queen's and attached to the centre meant that it could also carry out fundamental research into new plastics, research that could in turn feed back into the industry.
The research capability also attracts further grant support. The centre has already won £500,000 in funding from Britain's Research Council, income used to support postgraduate and postdoctoral research activity.
"Our objective is to become self-sustaining. We have a business plan in place which will show how we intend to become self sustaining after the three-year funding runs out," Mr Grant said.
To this end it is also offering its services to companies south of the Border. Companies from the Republic had used the centre's laboratory facilities and had sent staff to its various training courses, Mr Grant said.
There were about 100 polymer production companies in the North, Mr Grant said. Half of them are small, with fewer than 50 employees, and 75 per cent of them are locally owned, with no connection to multinational companies. These two factors meant that many of the North's plastics manufacturers were "very limited in their research and technological capabilities. This is where the plastics centre comes in". The centre had done work for about a third of the total, he added, including Boxmore, which also has plants in the Republic, McKechnie Vehicle Components, Jordan Plastics and Wilsanco Plastics.
There is a much bigger pool of about 250 plastics production companies in the Republic. "We would be hoping to get involved with some of the companies there," Mr Grant said.
