R&D is the driver for future success
Any successful speciality chemicals business requires an innovative and productive research and development team to support business growth objectives. Cognis UK Ltd is no exception, having a total of 25 R&D staff representing ~12% of the total Cognis UK Ltd. workforce.
Flexible resource for new business development.
Organic growth through innovation and change.
The R&D Group is organised into discreet Development Teams. This enables each of Cognis UK's business areas to have a flexible resource for developing new products, improving existing products, perhaps to meet changing customer or market needs, or improving the technology and manufacturing processes operated at the Hythe and Barry sites. A particular feature of Cognis UK Ltd.'s development activities is the strong focus on customers and their end-use requirements. For this reason the R&D teams work very closely with colleagues in application and market development and the commercial arena to expedite speedy, creative, high quality and professional solutions to customer and market demands. The laboratory-based R&D chemists and technicians are housed in a modern, well-equipped Technical Centre at Hythe comprising two development laboratories and a high-pressure autoclave facility. Alongside these labs is the site Quality Control Laboratory, which as well as conducting analysis for the entire Hythe site’s manufacturing activity, also provides a wide-ranging analytical service to the R&D Teams. To supplement in-house knowledge, the Cognis UK Ltd.’s technical team can call upon a wide network of external academic or industrial contacts in chosen areas of chemical or process operation expertise. In this way the group successfully keeps abreast of market and technology changes which may affect the business and supports Cognis UK Ltd.'s commitment to organic growth through innovation and change. To help meet the demands for timely project development the R&D Group also operates extensive pilot plant facilities. A particular area of strength is in alkoxylation technology where pilot units ranging from 5 to 80 liters are available for new product or process development and sampling for customer application trials. Further pilot units are available for (trans)esterification and other multi-purpose chemical processing.
Creative, high quality and professional solutions to customer and market demands.
Development from first enquiry to product commercialisation.
Not all R&D activity at Hythe is confined to the development laboratories. Wide experience gained in conducting complex processing of high purity monomers has led to the establishment of a team now fully engaged in commercial manufacture of special monomer intermediates in support of Cognis UK Ltd.´s CL Monomers Business. In summary, it is by design that the R&D Group is involved at all stages of project development from first enquiry to product commercialisation and as such, the group has a key part to play within an overall culture of serving customer and market requirements through continuous business improvement.