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Until the eighties, compounding of new polymer formulations was performed on “small” laboratory extruders, for which at least a few hundred grams of the polymer was needed. For testing the properties of these new polymers a pilot line was needed to synthesise such large quantities. This made new developments in polymer materials very tedious, time-consuming and costly.
Micro compounding refers to the mixing of polymer formulations in the melt on a very small scale, typically several ml. The advantage of the use of a micro compounder for R&D is significant: it gives faster, yet reliable results with much smaller samples and at much fewer costs, thus speeding up the innovation process in polymer material R&D. Xplore was and is the front leader in these micro compounding and shaping instruments.
Xplore started in the 90s to develop and build unique processing instruments for the R&D department of a commodity and engineering plastics company (DSM). In the last decade, our focus successfully broadened to many more customers, markets and applications. This resulted in innovative new developments in instrument design and a broad portfolio of screening tools for material formulation development. Having its origin at DSM Research Xplore hereby inherited a strong awareness of how R&D can contribute to sustainable organic growth of a product portfolio that is able to serve in many area's of "circular economy" applications.
Since March 2014, Xplore became a fully independent, privately-owned company, officially named Xplore Instruments BV.This enables us to be even more dedicated to our core business: helping our R&D customers by developing, (custom) manufacturing and marketing the best microprocessing and post die shaping instruments in the world. Xplore prefers fast innovation over patenting. The motto “Continuous Innovation” is rooted deep in the genes of the Xplore leadership and their employees. R&D is seen not as a cost but as an investment in the future success of the company.
We want to be the front runner and trendsetter in micro-mixing and shaping instruments for polymer/rubber R&D all over the world. Our goal is to combine customer wishes with our experience and know-how to deliver innovative solutions. Micro extrusion is the key to cost-effective and fast development of new material formulations. Xplore aims to ever increase the quality and possibilities of our mixing and shaping instruments with minimum quantities of material at affordable prices for the customer. As many R&D challenges are unique, we also develop new innovative instruments for customers to overcome their specific R&D challenges. With our valuable experience in micro compounding and shaping, we also offer application and service support to help our customer in any respect to reaching its challenging targets sooner.
Xplore wants to be the front runner of manufacturers of high-quality small size R&D processing instruments, focusing mainly on high-viscous materials used in polymer and rubber technology where mixing and shaping of materials impose challenges.
As a result, Xplore embraces innovation where R&D plays a pivotal role to support its marketing activities.
Xplore respects the challenges and creativity of scientists and wants to provide them with innovative, high-quality screening tools to develop (new) viscous formulations. And ideally, at the same time, allowing them to conduct feasibility studies for“state of the art” game-changing ideas.
Xplore aims to facilitate its customers in testing their new ideas through reliable and fast screening of many samples at minimum costs, which are scalable to production installations.
In this way, Xplore supports the quality and speed of polymer and elastomeric innovation in many fields of materials R&D.
