New Technology Commercialisation -

Fireshield Surfacing Veil

Background:

A fire retardant surfacing veil was developed by CRC-ACS as a novel solution to improve fire performance in pultruded product. Regina Glass Fibre & Tissue, a manufacturer of glass fibre tissue, was identified as having the potential to commercialise the technology.

Approach:

CRC-ACS licensed the fire retardant surfacing technology to Regina. CRC-ACS and Regina worked together to co-develop the product further to address various processing, production and implementation issues.

Solution:

Regina was responsible for the commercialisation of FireShield while CRC-ACS provided technical support to Regina and potential users of FireShield.
A pilot plant was set up at Regina to manufacture prototype product. Co-development work with CRC-ACS involved fire performance evaluation, composition modifications, resin compatibility, manufacturing specifications and implementation and FireShield process development and optimisation.

Outcome:

Regina opened the Firesheild production facility in September 2009.

FireShield can be used on most resin types and manufacturing processes. It enables replacement of expensive and difficult to process FR resins with a lower cost material which is easier to process. It is currently used by Ampelite in a FR roof sheeting product for a power station and there is strong interest locally and internationally in a range of market sectors.

CRC-ACS received the CRC STAR Award in May 2008 for “high level achievement in helping to build successful small to medium enterprises through the transfer of CRC innovation” for this project.

CRC-ACS, Regina Glass Fibre and Ampelite received a JEC Asia 2009 Innovation Award for Raw Materials for the Fireshield product.

ACS Australia was established in 2008 by the Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Composite Structures (CRC-ACS) for commercialisation of the expertise and technologies developed by CRC-ACS. All ACS Australia staff also work within CRC-ACS.