Following a successful JEC World 2023, AZoM spoke with exhibitors Bitrez about their impressive polymer products and chemical competencies.
Please could you introduce yourself and your professional background?
I am fortunate enough to have three successful businesses, all of which hold the most prestigious awards for innovation. Anacarda Ltd is a supplier of specialist polymers derived from Cashew nutshell liquid, Bitrez Ltd is a specialty polymer manufacturer with a broad range of resin products, and Chemical Processing Services Ltd is a consultancy firm I set up to house intellectual Property for licensing purposes. Through CPS I hold several Patents and several licensing arrangements in Europe and the USA.
I was awarded a Fellowship to the Royal Society of Chemistry and was immensely honored to be the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2021.
Bitrez designs and develops synthetic resins and advanced polymers. What are synthetic resins, and what are their industrial applications?
Bitrez designs and develops specialist polymers. They are manufactured by taking various chemical feedstocks and synthesizing them under specific conditions to generate polymers that are found in applications all around us. This includes resins that are used to harvest green energy, transmit and distribute energy, lightweight vehicles for greater efficiency, as well as being used for bonding, coating, and protecting all sorts of items. Be it a body scanner or a prosthetic limb, you can find polymers in just about everything.
Image Credit: Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock.com
Our polymers are ubiquitous and find application in many areas. Even the inside of food and beverage cans are lined with a fine coating that protects the packaging from the contents and the contents from the can. This extends the life of the product and allows for safe storage and transportation of foodstuffs all over the world.
What sorts of industries are your products most frequently utilized in?
The packaging sector is a large portion of our business. Still, from trains, planes, and automobiles to specialist coatings, brushes to apply the coatings, and cleaning agents to remove them, we have materials being used in many applications.
To what extent is Bitrez able to tailor its services to the specific requirements of clients?
Our products are designed for numerous clients, and we are always pleased to generate bespoke products that will meet customer and application needs. This may be a technical enhancement, introduction of a processing characteristic to ease use, modification to enhance resistance to fire or allow operation in aggressive environments, or it may be an improvement to allow compliance with regulatory needs.
Image Credit: Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock.com
We have a very broad range of chemical competencies, so we can supply product chemistry that is fit for the intended purpose.
What does R&D look like at Bitrez?
R&D at Bitrez consists of a dynamic response that comes in many guises. We work right the way through subtle modifications of existing products through to the generation of new innovations using disruptive chemistry to push boundaries and lead the way. With our pilot facilities, we can design and scale up products to allow customer qualification and the generation of product demonstrators.
This year, you exhibited at JEC World – Europe’s leading composites trade show. What drew you to this event, and why was it important for Bitrez to be visible there?
JEC World is a great opportunity for us to meet with new and existing customers and to explain many of the new products we have been working on. With our broad range of matrix polymers, we can exhibit established products and new materials, and we also offer toll production of customer formulas using our facilities.
Were you promoting any technologies in particular at the show?
In this instance, we had the opportunity to showcase some new CPS Patented Bio-based epoxy curing agents, CPS bio-benzoxazines, and some of the other cleaner polymer types from the new CPS portfolio. We also took the opportunity of explaining our involvement in the FOREST Consortium.
What is next on the horizon for Bitrez in terms of innovation and growth?
We continue to undertake work to generate products that have sustainable content, and we also sit in the FOREST consortium and other initiatives that are looking to address how to achieve Carbon neutrality goals and a circular economy through reduced fossil dependency and the use of sustainable feedstocks.
More from JEC World: Is Fiber Patch Placement the Future of Composites?
FOREST - Advanced lightweight materials FOR Energy-efficient Structures - The FOREST project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101091790.
About Paul Jones
Paul joined Bitrez as a teenager, and it was noted that he had an incredible aptitude for polymer chemistry, an inherent ability to lead, and a work ethic that drove him to absorb, learn and support improvements in all areas of the business.
The then owners identified these characteristics, and Paul moved rapidly through the ranks as development, works, and operations manager, ultimately having half ownership with his current business partner and close friend and founder Brian Allen. Within the business and for almost four decades, he has always retained control over R&D, which led to several other ventures in his career.
Paul and his company have won many recognitions throughout their journey for their state-of-the-art transformations in the chemical industry. Celebrating and naming a few of them:
Queens Award for innovation x 2
Kings Award for Innovation
IChemE x 2
2020 CEO Today – CEO of the Year UK
2020 Corporate Livewire – Most Innovative Management Professional
2020 – Top 100 Most Inspirational Individuals working in the UK industry
2020 – Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society OF Chemistry
2021 – CEO Today – CEO of the Year UK
2021 – CEO Today – CEO of the Year Europe
2021 – Corporate Livewire – Most Innovative Management Professional
2021 – Best of British Award recipient – Business Report for the Telegraph
2021 – Business Worldwide – Entrepreneur of the Year – Chemical Industry
2021 – Introduced as a member of the Leaders Council and Parliamentary Report
2021 – Royal Society of Chemistry – Chemical World Entrepreneur of the Year
Bitrez - https://www.bitrez.com/news/
Chemical Processing Services Ltd - https://www.cps-consultancy.com/news/
Anacarda - https://www.anacarda.com/news/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitrez-group-limited/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/chemical-processing-services-ltd-cps/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/anacarda-limited/
ITN Video – The Chemical Industry – Route to Net Zero -
https://vimeo.com/632980517?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=103580461
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