Interview with D-NL-HIT Project Partner CCL Olympic

What is your role as a partner in the D-NL-HIT Project?

CCL-Olympic is an industrial partner in the D-NL-HIT project.

What specific R&D Project(s) are you working on? What is/are your key target(s)?

CCL-Olympic is a manufacturer of high end acrylic adhesive tapes for structural bonding. The majority of our products are used in the automotive, electronic and building & industry. There is a growing demand in these industries for adhesive tapes that adhere well to plastics, coatings and paints. With this project we aim to develop a new type of adhesive tape that can meet this challenging requirements.

How does D-NL-HIT help you to achieve your target(s)?

Typically an acrylic adhesive tape comprises of 10-20 component and several process steps. This makes the development of a new type of tape challenging effort. High throughput experimentation can be an effective screening tool that greatly reduces the resources and time needed for the development of a new acrylic tape. The system screens for interesting combinations of components and process allowing the lab technician to effectively use valuable time and resources for the development of an acrylic adhesive tape.

What are the major benefits of the D-NL-HIT Project?

When we joined the D-NL-HIT project several years ago there was essentially nothing but a vision of how high-throughput experimentation could be used to speed up development for adhesives, coating and other surface technologies. We knew that it would take several years to materialize that vision. And honestly, at that time it probably costed us more than we gained from the project. However, several years later the project is now starting to come together and the initial hard labor is slowly starting to pay off.

D-NL-HIT is all about collaboration and interregional project work.
What positive effects does the project have?

To be honest… prior to D-NL-HIT we were never looked across the border for scientific answers to our industrial questions. D-NL-HIT helped us to establish a cross-border network with the scientific community.