Must durable goods always be constructed of wood,

steel, aluminum, masonry or concrete?

And if the answer is "no" then what are the materials of the future?

Introduction to the Molecular Age

The history of civilization can be understood by viewing the history of raw materials.  In fact, the early periods of human history bear the names of the raw materials that were dominant at that time: such as the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.  As the manufacturing processes for each new family of raw material came under the control of humankind, technology advanced.

More importantly, control over the manufacture of new materials often brought control over the surrounding world. Those who have read the history of early civilization know that the first cultures that gained the technical knowledge to manufacture weapons and tools from iron quickly asserted military and cultural superiority over those who continued to work with bronze.

Today we are in a new age where molecules are the raw materials, and engineering thermoplastics and their composites are arguably the most important of these materials with applications ranging from medicine to renewable energy, and construction to transportation.

The development of plastics and their composites is one of the most successful stories of the twentieth century.  Whereas metals have been around for more than 5000 years, plastics have only been around for about a century.  The years 1900-1960 are considered the ‘Age of Discovery’ where new plastic materials were developed.  Although plastics only represented a small fraction of the total annual consumption of materials in the 1960’s, by the 1980’s their production surpassed metallic materials (mostly, iron based) in terms of consumed volume.  At the end of the 20^th century, plastics reached the astonishing sum of 150 million metric tons produced per year. Of this amount 70% were comprised of commodity plastics [high-density polyethylene (HDPE), lower-density polyethylene (LDPE), polyproplene (PP), poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), and polystyrene (PS)], 11% by thermoset resins, 7% by elastomers, and 12% by engineering thermoplastics. 

While the commodity plastics industry is quite mature and suffering from over production, the engineering plastics industry, which includes both thermoset and thermoplastics and their composites, represents just a small fraction of the market potential when one considers that engineering plastics can compete head-to-head in markets currently dominated by traditional materials that use wood and metal; natural materials which are in short supply, and are expected to be in even shorter supply once the Asian continent moves further into the 21^st century.  Thus the market potential for engineering plastics is inestimable, and not limited to the 150 million metric tons of all plastics.    

Competition for Market Share

During the last decade, continuous fiber-reinforced thermoset composites monopolized various applications, including: aerospace, aircraft, automotive, sports, and leisure.  Generally the dominance of thermosets over thermoplastics in structurally demanding applications occurred because thermosets historically offered greater stiffness and strength, could withstand higher temperatures under load, and provided higher chemical stability.  This was a function of both cross-link density, and the typical ability of thermosets to achieve higher fiber volume fractions of reinforcements due to better wetout and coupling.  This was the case because, unlike traditional thermoplastics, thermoset resins began life in liquid form with very low (water-like) viscosities.  Since the thermoset’s initial low viscosity helped facilitate high wetout of reinforcements and produced composites with higher fiber volume fractions, thermosets traditionally resulted in stiffer parts.  Low initial viscosity also facilitated longer flow lengths, making it easier to produce large parts. 

However, these advantages came at a price, as the deficiencies of thermoset composites were often slower processing times, much higher post-molding finishing steps (which made the cost of a thermoset piece higher than a thermoplastic piece despite lower raw material and processing costs), and challenges in fully automating many thermoset molding processes, which also negatively impacted costs, particularly at higher production volumes. 

Nearly all thermosets also required special storage, handling, and disposal procedures owing to short shelf-life and high toxicity issues. Further regulations on volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions during processing also necessitated the installation of expensive air-handling equipment in the processing facilities, and special protective clothing for workers, adding still more to overhead and production costs.  And the tendency of these materials to continue to emit VOCs during use-life put end users and the environment at risk – a fact that is drawing the attention of global governmental and non-governmental organizations, each of which are starting to call for (or are already legislating) tougher emission standards. 

As if this were not bad enough, thermoset composites higher stiffness comes at the expense of impact strength, making them inherently brittle.   The fact that thermosets can not be post-formed, nor welded also limits their expansion into more traditional markets.  Lastly, the inability to reprocess in-plant scrap and the lack of economically-viable post-consumer recycling opportunities add further costs. While many thermosets can be reground and used as filler, most thermoset scrap is considered to have little economic value. 

Engineering Thermoplastic Valley of Death

For these reasons, considerable research and development efforts have been spent on developing a new class of advanced thermoplastic resins and their composites.  Advanced engineering thermoplastics, which are based on a relatively new group of compounds called cyclic oligomers or macrocycles exhibit superior mechanical and thermal properties in a wide range of conditions over and above more commonly used commodity plastics and other engineering plastics.

In addition to possessing the advantages of traditional thermoplastics such as low scrap residue, recyclability, better toughness & damage tolerance, unlimited shelf-life, and rapid fabrication – thermoplastics manufactured from cyclic oligomers  have a number of other processing advantages that place them far ahead of thermosets and other thermoplastics, including:

• Low viscosity
• Fast polymerization times
• Isothermal processing
• Lack of exotherm  
• No volatile organic compound emissions
• No outgassing
• Little or no shrinkage in volume

Other positive attributes of these thermoplastics include the fact that they are non-porous (don’t absorb moisture or rot), do not conduct electricity, are sustainable and durable, are not prone to insect infiltration, are sound absorbent, are lighter than concrete or steel and about the same weight as oak wood, are ideal for use in areas of seismicity due to their low self weight, and absorb energy and high strain rate prior to failure making them more impact resistant that metals.  They can also be engineered to be fire retardant.

These new materials soar over obstacles that hinder traditional engineering plastics, and have the potential to revolutionize the markets. 

Although these advanced thermoplastic materials have been around for some time, they have only been produced at relatively low levels during commercial manufacture because the current methods used for their preparation severely limit their use. The present methodology for producing these plastics generally requires hundreds of man-hours of work, produces large amounts of toxic waste, requires large and expensive manufacturing facilities, and still produces very low yields of the desired material – And low yields mean small or no profit margins in the marketplace.

The necessity of obtaining high yields for the preparation of these materials has been, and still is, the major stumbling block for their commercial exploitation, and the stimulus for efforts to discover new ones.

ODIN’s Breakthrough in Thermoplastics

ODIN Industries technology is a general and enabling method, which revolutionizes the design of chemical processes to make them safe, compact, flexible, energy efficient, environmentally benign, and conducive to the rapid commercialization of new products.  Its impact will be felt immediately in the manufacturing of existing prototypes as well as long-term in the development of new products.  The processes advantages include: quick entry into engineering plastics, big profit margins on materials and products that currently have small or no margins; increased yields; improved robustness; increased scale and throughput; rapid production via automation; greatly simplified purification procedures; reduced environmental impact via higher reaction concentrations (from 100-1000 fold), simplified purification and less toxic solvents; improved safety due to smaller reaction volumes, less flammable solvents, less toxic solvents, fewer steps, fewer man hours,  and reduced side reactions. 

The Company’s intellectual property relating to the synthesis of macrocyclic compounds, including advanced thermoplastics, (“ODIN Technology”) is the subject of U.S. Patent Application No. 11/059,796 and numerous corresponding international patent applications and divisional applications filed February 17, 2005 for “Methods, Compositions, and Apparatuses for Forming Macrocyclic Compounds”.

This disruptive platform technology offers sustainable competitive advantage in the engineering plastics industry, and offersour partners the opportunity to significantly reduce imports of raw materials and end-use products made from traditional materials like wood, and metal.

To learn more about ODIN, please contact us. We welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

Mr. Billy Fowler

Chief Global Strategist

1 (770) 367-1610

BTF@ODINIndustries.com