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Research and development
Operations
Product development on a single raw material
Development work is directed at one raw material. Fifty years of production data on perlite — expansion behaviour, impurity profile, grade response by deposit — is the base every new product is developed from.
New grades are developed against a defined application requirement rather than against a laboratory result. Trial production runs on the group's own lines, and the resulting material is tested in the group's own laboratory before a customer trial is proposed.
Scope of development work
Development covers the full range the material supports: particle structure, surface behaviour, density and the performance of a grade inside a customer's process. Work is directed by application requirement rather than by product category.
Programmes run continuously across filtration, construction, functional fillers, horticulture and consumer care. Individual projects are discussed with customers directly rather than published.
Development capability
Testing covers the physical, chemical and performance properties listed under quality control, including expansion performance, compaction resistance, filter aid flow rate and cake density, mineralogical analysis and Bond index. The same laboratory supports both routine release and development work.
Production recipes give development a direct route into production. A grade proven in trial is written as a recipe and produced against it.