Interview: “Higher speed in research and development”

What are the advantages of High Throughput Experimentation (HTE) plants?

Detlef Gysau: A HTE plant provides various benefits to the industry. Digitalisation, in combination with machine learning, enables accelerated and broader screening capability with ultimate precision leading to higher speed in research & development and securing intellectual property. Also, earlier market entry boosts revenue development and leadership in innovation.

In addition, HTE plants allow reallocation of highly skilled lab personnel to other – more value-added tasks – and contribute to safety and health by reducing the contact to possible harmful substances. Finally, a much smaller scale of sample sizes cuts the raw material and waste turnover in the lab for a more sustainable working environment.

For which types of formulations are they particularly suitable?

Gysau: HTE solutions are suitable for water- and solvent-based formulations, zero to high pigment volume concentration (pvc) formulations, 1-pack and 2-pack formulations, curing mechanisms at room temperature, heat activated, UV/IR initiated, etc.

As the global market leader of HTE, we create, develop and deliver full workflow application-oriented solutions. With our unique blending vessel and robotic tool exchange technology including unrivaled overhead gravimetric dispensing in the mg range for liquids, viscous liquids, powders and granules, even during mixing and dispersing, we offer formulation solutions without compromise.

Can a HTE plant be adapted to any kind of scale, regardless of company size or production capacities?

Gysau: Different platforms offer solutions to automate formulation, application, characterisation and testing, as well as any combination thereof. These solutions are available, as benchtop and single platforms to be combined and connected to complex systems with a high degree of flexibility plus integration options for third-party instruments. The HTE plant can be configured from very small sample sizes up to small pilot scale sizes. Customers simply need to define their specific requirements and goals to get a system configured accordingly.

Event tip

Detlef Gysau will also present at the EC Conference Automation on June 22 and 23 in Stuttgart, Germany. The event with presentations and a field trip addresses decision makers and users in laboratories for development and quality control as well as production. It will give impulses for daily work as well as perspectives from the academic environment.