Imperial Innovations Group plc (AIM: IVO, 'Innovations'), a leading technology commercialisation and investment group, has invested £0.5m in Impression Technologies, an aluminium forming technology business based on intellectual property developed at Imperial College London. The new funds will be used to support the development of its aluminium forming process, manufacture demonstration parts and develop a technical and commercial team.
The world's automotive and transport industries will have to make a step change in their use of aluminium if they are to meet the environmental challenges of reducing energy consumption and carbon emission targets. Aluminium is difficult to form into complex shapes due to its limited ductility. Current technologies cannot meet the challenges faced in producing sophisticated shapes and structures for high volume applications cost effectively.
Professor Lin of Imperial College London and Professor Dean of the University of Birmingham, have developed the Hot Form Quench (HFQ) technology, which provides a cost-competitive means of producing lightweight, complex and structured aluminium components, and opens the door to a new generation of solutions for the automotive, aerospace and rail industries. Impression Technologies has been created to commercialise this technology and its associated know-how.
In the patented HFQ process, an aluminium sheet is heated above its Solution Heat Treatment temperature, formed while hot, and quenched in the press. This process allows pressings to be formed which are lighter, deeper and with tighter radii than has been possible to date. The process is quicker and more cost-effective than current methods, results in superior metallurgical properties, and allows stronger and lighter structures to be formed.
The market for passenger car vehicles alone is some 60 million vehicles a year, and the opportunity for components which might be formed using this technology is of the order of €10 billion per annum globally in passenger cars alone. Impression Technologies is in talks with a range of potential partners with which it expects to enter into trading, licensing and partnering arrangements.
Impression Technologies is headed by CEO George Adam, an experienced automotive manager with over 30 years' experience at GKN plc and ESAB China, and Chairman Mike Foster, formerly CEO of Charter International plc, which he headed for 5 years following a career at GKN plc and Kvaener.
Susan Searle, Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Innovations, said:
"Impression Technologies is an example of the support Innovations offers in the commercialisation of new technologies developed at Imperial College London, which have the ability to transform the way industries operate. The deployment of HFQ technology has great commercial and environmental potential."
George Adam, Chief Executive Officer of Impression Technologies, said:
"HFQ enables the production of lighter, stronger and more sophisticated structures in Aluminium than has been possible to date cost-effectively. It creates new opportunities for car manufacturers and others to improve the performance of their vehicles while reducing their carbon footprint."
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