AkzoNobel plans to spend more than €1.3 million on a pilot plant for coatings resins to be built at its Performance Coatings site in Felling, UK, and scheduled to go on stream in the first quarter of 2016.

The Dutch chemical producer said the state-of-the-art facility, which will create three new jobs and safeguard a further 28 positions at the site, will initially provide resin samples for product testing and later is planned to be scaled up to commercial manufacturing dimensions.

The new facility was part-funded by the UK government's “Let's Grow” regional growth fund. It will be the latest addition to the Felling complex, which is the Performance Coatings business's largest R&D site worldwide, employing around 300 scientists.

“In-house resin development is a key part of our coatings R&D effort,” said Adam Bell, head of the scale-up team for the pilot plant. “This facility will improve our delivery of large-scale resin for testing, while streamlining the scale-up process from the laboratory through to factory manufacturing,” he added.

Gareth Crapper, manager of the Performance Coatings technology center at Felling said coatings technology and product innovation are at the core of our business strategy. The new facility underlines the company’s commitment to the Felling site, which has attracted investment of more than €30 million over the past five years, he stressed.