AkzoNobel opens €7 million fire protection R&D facility
AkzoNobel opened a €7 million state-of-the-art fire protection laboratory at its Felling site in the UK, part of a major €10 million investment in research, development and innovation (RD&I) which will create around 40 new jobs.
The lab will be operated by the company's Marine and Protective Coatings business. The global market is growing rapidly due to increasingly stringent fire protection regulations worldwide, with forecasters expecting demand to double by 2018.
"This modern facility will help us to drive innovation and deliver cutting-edge performance coatings technology in line with what our customers demand," said Graeme Armstrong, the company's Executive Committee member responsible for RD&I. "We have installed furnaces on a scale which will test what conditions our coatings materials have to withstand, enabling us to supply our customers with technically sophisticated solutions that are proven and commercially viable."
The new facility is the latest in a series of RD&I investments by AkzoNobel at the Felling site, which employs more than 950 people. Earlier this year, a €2 million lab for powder coatings polymer research and a €1.4 million corporate research laboratory were inaugurated at the location.
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