Aug 19 2008
Symyx Technologies, Inc. has reported an enthusiatic response from European Chemical and Petrochemical companies to their growing suite of modular and integrated workflow tools for accelerating R&D innovation.
Faced with an ever-increasing need to minimise the time to bring new ideas to market, Chemical and Petrochemical companies in Europe are looking to new generation R&D tools to enable experimentation to run significantly faster - and at less cost - so that projects can achieve a higher probability of success.
Symyx Tools are designed to accelerate R&D while reducing costs. Innovative software-driven instruments integrate and automate laboratory experimentation, increasing testing capacity by 10-100 times while eliminating costly, labour-intensive routine work. Symyx Tools for Chemical and Petrochemical applications are completely modular, so they can be configured into a range of integrated workflows for specific experimental applications.
Borealis, a leading provider of innovative, value creating plastics solutions, has implemented a Parallel Pressure Reactor (PPR) research tool supplied by Symyx Technologies as part of a project to drastically reduce the time taken to develop new materials. The first polymerisation trials were successfully completed at Borealis' Innovation Centre in Porvoo, Finland. The PPR is a fully automated workflow system that comprises 48 mini-reactors, each with a volume of just a few millilitres, which can simultaneously carry out 48 polymerisation experiments in a single day - far faster than current approaches. The system is ideally suited for catalyst and process research. "This new equipment provides a major step forward for our research community and helps us develop innovations much faster and more efficiently", said Alfred Stern, Borealis Vice president for Innovation and Technology.
Vinzenz Hohl, General Manager of Symyx Technologies Europe SA commented "Innovative modular tools such as our new Parallel Fixed Bed Reactor and Benchtop Systems, backed by local informed support from our demonstration facility in Geneva, have been key drivers for our business growth". He added "The affordability of these exciting products has opened the door beyond just large companies to gain the full benefit of enhanced R&D productivity and effectiveness".
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