Australia- and Greer, S.C.-based specialty chemicals and solutions developer Alexium International Group Ltd. — holder of proprietary patent applications for Reactive Surface Treatment (RST) technology — reports that it has almost completed its second full-scale production trial with Fall River, Mass.-based Duro Textiles LLC, its manufacturing partner and North American licensee, for Ascalon? flame-retardant (FR) treatment for nylon. The completion of the trial moves Alexium closer to the commercial product launch of Ascalon FR technology.
Alexium reports that it has implemented manufacturing-level process changes and chemistry enhancements improved key FR criteria for the finished product by 68-percent.
"By working with our manufacturing partners at Duro, our technical team has been able to achieve insights into the Ascalon technology that would not be apparent on the laboratory scale alone," said Bob Brookins, head of research and development, Alexium. "We are now working with US University collaborators and with Independent Certification Laboratories to deepen our understanding of the Ascalon technology and get the broadest possible perspective on how it performs for additional product lines."
Conway, S.C.-based independent textile and apparel testing laboratory Magill Services Inc. recently tested Ascalon at four of its facilities and verified the FR treatment's vertical burn performance. The testing is intended to provide guides for variable production setups used by different factories and to broaden the technology's potential product applications.
Using test data results, Alexium made small changes to Ascalon technology that resulted in a 44-percent improvement in key FR performance measures and a 58-percent reduction in the variability in those measures, the company reports.
"Although we were certainly pleased with the solid performance from Ascalon through independent testing, we also saw the data as an opportunity to take the quality of the product to a new level for the benefit of our current, as well as our potential, manufacturing partners," said Dirk Van Hyning, head of product development and commercial transfer, Alexium. "Importantly, we are now able to provide confidence from independent tests for our future manufacturing partners, for important manufacturing mileposts such as percentage first quality and on-time delivery."
