Oct. 24 2008: NaturalNano and Oxford Performance Materials (OPM) have signed an exclusive joint development and supply agreement. Within the scope of the agreement, OPM and NaturalNano will work to develop products, applications and markets for the combination of OPM’s OXPEKK and NaturalNano’s Pleximer technology.
This new class of high-performance thermoplastics, OXPEKK-DRT, is expected to significantly improve the processing and mechanical properties of OXPEKK, while increasing the range of potential applications for current OXPEKK materials. Under the agreement, NaturalNano will purchase certain polyketone polymers exclusively from OPM and, using its Pleximer technology, produce polyketone-halloysite compounds which it will sell exclusively to OPM.
“Our work with NaturalNano has yielded some of the most significant products in the history of our company,” said Scott DeFelice, president and CEO of OPM. “The affinity of our polymer-to-nano-phase fillers has been well known to us for years, though the challenge has always been finding highly reliable and dispersible nano-scale additives. The unique properties of halloysite in NaturalNano’s Pleximer product have solved this problem for us.”
“I am very excited about using our Pleximer technology in Oxford’s OXPEKK,” said Cathy Fleischer, PhD, president and CTO of NaturalNano. “We believe by combining our leading products, we can bring stronger, lighter and less expensive properties to the users of high-value polyketone polymers.”
OPM’s OXPEKK products are specified on the Boeing 787 aircraft. The Boeing 787 aircraft has been slated to contain as much as 50% advance polymer composites in its primary structure, and has been scheduled to enter service in the third quarter of 2009.
OXPEKK-DRT polymer products will initially be marketed to OPM’s core customers in the energy management, aerospace, electronics and medical markets. Existing high performance polymer users in need of additional performance will be a target market for these materials. OXPEKK-DRT materials can be either injection molded or extruded, enabling a broad range of applications.