MACE (MicrowAve Cured Epoxy)

基地材料是一个重要的制造商和供应商的工具板广泛用于创造工具使用的复合材料行业的制造复合材料组件。由工具板构造工具导致高水平的废物（通常为50%），并且因为它是不可回收的，所以大部分废物最终被填埋;此外，工具板在低温和高温下都具有较长的固化周期，这是能源密集型和低效的。低温固化周期长（长达5天）的原因是为了避免不受控制的温度偏移，这可能导致过热和火灾。一个潜在的解决方案是使用微波能固化树脂，因为它有可能最大限度地减少热偏移，并显着减少固化时间。虽然这似乎是一个有吸引力的过程，从技术的角度来看，该技术的经济性还没有评估工具板，这是我们的建议，审查逻辑，经济，安全，知识产权和潜在的最终用途市场作为案头研究工作。

Base Materials is a significant manufacturer and supplier of tooling board widely used tocreate tools used in the composites industry for the manufacture composite components. Theconstruction of tools from tooling board results in high levels of waste (typically 50%) andbecause it is non-recyclable the majority of it ends up in landfill; furthermore tooling boardwhich has a long curing cycle both at low and elevated temperatures which is energy intensiveand inefficient. The reason for the long (up to 5 days) low temperature curing cycle is to avoiduncontrolled temperature excursions which can lead to overheating and fires. A potentialsolution is to use microwave energy to cure the resin as it has the potential to minimisethermal excursions and significantly reduce curing times.Whilst this may seem to be an attractive process from a technical point of view the economicsof the technology has not been evaluated for tooling board and it is our proposal to review thelogistics, economics, safety, IPR and potential end use markets as a desk research exercise.