REPEATING THE PROCESS
A commercial-scale, 450-ton injection molding machine allows Arkema to duplicate the customer’s processing conditions and troubleshoot problems. For Dirkx, this capability is fundamental to the success of Arkema’s relationship to its customers along the supply chain.
M.S. and went straight to a Ph.D. in solid state science.
Army AL&T: A lot of our readers may not be familiar with your company, but it’s quite likely that products you make are right in their neighborhoods, homes or offices. Kynar comes to mind. Can you give us some examples of Arkema prod- ucts that people may not be familiar with that they might see or use every day?
Dirkx: Indeed, our products are not ter- ribly visible unless someone points them out to you. Kynar is a good example of this. It is a high-performing paint that is used on most of the world’s skyscrapers. It lasts for decades, and that’s why you never see
anyone painting these structures.
Some other good examples would include Plexiglas taillights, hydrogen peroxide in cleaners, detergents and oral care prod- ucts, and components in the lithium ion batteries found in your cellphones and photovoltaic solar panels. We have products that are made into nutrients for chicken feed and polymers that are used under the hood of your automobile.
Most often, if you buy an Arkema prod- uct, it’s going to be a component of the thing you buy. If you buy paint as a con- sumer, for example, there’s a lot of stuff in a gallon of paint. Te resin that holds it together is an important part of the final properties that you get. In addition, the paint’s got a solvent, which today is largely water; it’s got pigments to give you
the color; it’s got opacifiers and all kinds of things to give you the gloss that you want—and then a whole bunch of chem- istry to keep it stable on the store shelf. So, we’re only a component in there. We’re a very important component because we are—think of it as the glue that holds the whole thing together. And that’s why it’s important that we have the formulation knowledge and capabilities in-house.
Generically, what I believe strongly in and what we more or less have done across the board in Arkema R&D is that our research goes downstream of where our product is. So if I’m developing chemistry to sell to a coating company, we have the ability to formulate coatings, make them and test their performance here. Another
ASC.ARMY.MIL 81
CRITICAL THINKING
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