Cytec Industries Inc., developers of specialty material and chemical technologies, has acquired an equity position in Penso Holdings Ltd, a leading engineering services, vehicle conversion, and composite part manufacturing company, headquartered in Coventry, United Kingdom.

The companies have also signed a joint agreement to develop fast-curing, optimised composite materials product forms and rapid, cost-efficient composites processing technologies such as an innovative variation of hot compression moulding, to accelerate the adoption of composite parts in serial automotive applications. This builds on Cytec’s resin formulation and application engineering expertise and on Penso’s leadership in composite part engineering and manufacturing, according to a press release.

Markus Aschauer, vice president of Cytec Industrial Materials said, “Cytec has been making critical advances on its serial automotive materials and applications technology roadmap, through the development of novel rapid curing materials and product forms designed for automation, enabling high rate production of composite structures. This alliance with Penso strengthens our ability to jointly tailor materials, design and manufacturing technologies to maximise composite parts performance while minimising finished part cost, and further establishes our companies as key partners to automotive and other industrial sectors OEMs for composites-intensive new programs. We look forward to working closely together and offer comprehensive composite solutions to our customers.”

Daniel Hurcombe, managing director of Penso said, “I am very excited to have signed this agreement given Cytec’s strong technology and commitment to the high volume automotive market. We will be able to offer customers our joint engineering, materials and application expertise and work with them to develop integrated solutions to meet their needs. This agreement confirms our capability to support high volume serial automotive composite part production programs.” (GK)