Advanced Materials Portfolio

Polymer Formulation and Custom Resins

When an application has specialized requirements that can't be met through traditional materials, new high-performance materials are possible through polymer formulation. For example, aerospace and space-based applications have special criteria, such as atomic oxygen and radiation resistance, that aren’t normally a concern for traditional applications. Polymer formulation can address certain unique properties without having to synthesize an entirely new molecular design.

Expertise in formulation and molecular design enables the CRG team to understand how materials will interact at a molecular level so they can optimize material properties for a certain application. Whether as part of a reinforced composite or as a standalone material, custom resin technology offers affordable solutions.

Polymer formulation uses readily available components to create new materials and is an ongoing area of expertise at CRG. CRG has successfully applied this material design approach in two different ways.

Optimizing Current Polymer Systems with Additives

First, using a commercially available base material, CRG can introduce additives to optimize specific performance properties based on customer needs. CRG has the expertise and experience to comprehend how the materials interact at a molecular level and how this will affect the bulk properties of the new material. Properties that can be modified include, but are not limited to, the following:

Developing New Polymer Systems

Development begins by assessing the specific properties needed for a specific application. CRG designs custom resins with two different approaches: reformulating existing resins with additives or developing an entirely new resin system through molecular design and synthesis.

By using commercially available materials, CRG research engineers can achieve property enhancements through blending, compounding, or incorporating additives. This approach offers an affordable and timely solution for moderate performance improvements over existing materials. To maximize efficiency, CRG has extensive in-house characterization capabilities to provide rapid feedback on formulation iterations.

For applications requiring radical property modification, a reformulation approach may not be suitable. In such cases, CRG can design and synthesize an entirely new material to meet the target performance requirements. CRG’s experience with custom resin formulation has resulted in successes with engineered plastics, epoxy, cyanate ester, and other thermosets used in manufacturing technology, aerospace, and other applications. CRG’s patented shape memory polymer, Veriflex^®, has been tailored extensively since its invention and initial development. CRG has customized Veriflex resins to perform in a wide range of applications such as custom reusable tooling, reusable molds, replica optics, biological applications, morphing aircraft systems, and deployment mechanisms for outer space.