AkzoNobel Opens €7 Million Fire Protection R&D Facility

AkzoNobel has opened €7 million fire protection laboratory at its Felling site in the UK, part of a major €10 million investment in research, development and innovation (RD&I) which will create around 40 new jobs.

The lab will be operated by the company's Marine and Protective Coatings business, which is a leading supplier of fire protection coatings used to protect steel structures such as buildings and oil and gas installations. The company said the global market is growing rapidly due to increasingly stringent fire protection regulations worldwide, with forecasters expecting demand to double by 2018.

The new facility is the latest in a series of RD&I investments by AkzoNobel at the Felling site, which employs more than 950 people. Earlier this year, a €2 million lab for powder coatings polymer research and a €1.4 million corporate research laboratory were inaugurated at the location.