CASE STUDY
CHEMICAL
HIGHLIGHTS
- MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT
- CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
- PERSONAL CARE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
- OVER $100,000 IN NET CREDIT BENEFITS
For over 35 years this chemical company has developed and manufactured environmentally friendly products for personal care, household and industrial use.
R&D QUALIFICATION
The company undertook development to create a new line of haircare products for professional salon use. This company’s R&D process started with concept development which included input from chemists, product managers, process engineers, technical specifications personnel and company leadership.
Once the initial concept was created, the project moved to the detailed formulation and recipe development phase in the laboratory. Trials were conducted and various formulations were evaluated.
The prototype phase followed which included creating ever increasing batch sizes. The recipe was scaled for the R&D reactors and the operations personnel produced the first prototype batch.
HIGHLIGHTS
- MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT
- CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
- PERSONAL CARE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
- OVER $100,000 IN NET CREDIT BENEFITS
Once the prototype batch was completed, the material was taken through a number of tests depending on the surfactant characteristics desired in the product. This was an iterative process with adjustments being made to new prototype batches followed by another round of testing.
Prototypes were subjected to environmental testing, which included stability and temperature tests. As these products are formulated to be used for personal care, a wide variety of skin irritation and other types of tests must also be conducted to certify the product. Some tests were conducted by outside resources so the time between batches was significant. Once the batch passed customer acceptance testing, full production began.
RESULTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
This company had more than $1,500,000 in qualified research expenditures each year, which equated to $104,000 of tax savings annually.