NaturalNano, and
Oxford Performance Materials, today announced that the companies 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 state-of-the-art
Pleximer(TM) 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.