KCMC Offers opportunities for Northwest-based businesses

Launched in March, the Knowledge Centre for Materials Chemistry (KCMC) is now actively promoting its capabilities to industry in diverse applications where materials chemistry can help companies to innovate e.g. personal care products, pharmaceuticals, electronics and catalysis.

Key developments in recent months include the installation of significant new equipment and the recruitment of dedicated project scientists to work on industry projects in the partner institutions.

Northwest companies can also benefit from a new incentive scheme that enables eligible companies to carry out collaborative R&D with KCMC and receive up to 50% subsidy in the first phase of the project.

State-of-the-art equipment and facilities

New equipment now available to companies through the KCMC includes; an Atomic Force Microscopy (“AFM”) for surface characterisation; SAXS/WAXS X-ray diffraction, an Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) facility, inert atmosphere and clean room facilities for electronic device fabrication, and much more.

The new SAXS/WAXS instrumentation offers a remarkable new capability to study crystalline and amorphous materials as components and formulations at nano and molecular scales. This builds on a wide range of other advanced techniques already available through the KCMC for characterisation of solid and liquid based formulated products.

Demonstrator projects that utilise the new equipment will be run as it becomes available and companies are encouraged to find out how they can benefit from this.