Haydale enters technical collaboration with Rogers Advanced Composites

Advanced materials group Haydale Graphene announced on Tuesday that it has agreed heads of terms for a technical and commercial collaboration with Rogers Advanced Composites.

The AIM-traded firm said RAC was developing a composites centre located close to the Solent on the UK's South Coast.

It said the collaboration would enable RAC to access Haydale's extensive technical know-how in composites, polymers and resins, and to incorporate the range of advanced graphene enhanced composites, developed by Haydale, into its existing and future projects.

“The work conducted over the past two years in mixing, dispersing and processing of a range of nanomaterials into high end epoxy resins is now enabling us to add significant value to the traditional composite offerings that have been available for many years,” said Haydale CEO Ray Gibbs.

“The speed at which RAC has moved and their ability to attract exciting commercial projects makes this an obvious partner for Haydale to demonstrate our added value capabilities.

“We look forward to working with the RAC on what is a very exciting collaboration.”

Haydale said RAC had built a “strong reputation” in the design and manufacture of advanced composite products, and it understood RAC was experiencing a “strong demand” for high quality composite solutions across a range of industrial sectors including marine, military and motor sport.

It also said it understood RAC was in the process of securing long-term production contracts for an oil recovery project as well as several aerospace, military and motor racing projects.

There were also “some prospects” in the rail and shipping sectors, as well as new build high performance carbon fibre race boats and refits.

Haydale said it developed three specific graphene enhanced carbon fibre pre pregs that offered designers the ability to improve and optimise structural performance characteristics.

Each prepreg utilised functionalised graphene dispersed in epoxy resin formulations to deliver enhanced performance in a specific area - enhanced electrical conductivity, enhanced thermal conductivity, and enhanced mechanical performance.

Subject to individual projects being agreed, technical collaboration between Haydale and RAC should enable customers to achieve high performance and cost effective outcomes using the latest composite technology, Haydale’s board claimed.

“RAC is a design led composite manufacturing facility that is intent on adopting new technologies in the early stages of development,” said Rogers Advanced Composites CEO Simon Rogers.

“The opportunity to work with Haydale and their new graphene and other Nano products fits very well with our company philosophy and we believe this new collaboration will be the beginning of a long-term relationship.

“This is a very exciting stage in the new graphene age and we are delighted to be part of it with Haydale.”