New material development

Water repellent finishing is a process to prevent water from permeating fabric by splashing water off when water drops on fabric. Since it does not fill up the meshes of nets of fabric, vapor can penetrate fabric while water can’t.

In October 2012, Greenpeace announced that it detected perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) in woman and children water-proof jackets of popular outdoor wear brands and EPA (U.S.) decided to apply a strict standard that fabric treated with water repellent finishing must not contain have PFOA(perfluorooctanoic acid) from 2015. To with this regulatory trend, Insilico has been performing continuous research to develop harmless and environment-friendly water repellents on the basis of organic/inorganic hybrid technology.

Thermochromic and photochromic dyes are colored substances made by discoloration of organic compounds. The discoloration of dyes is a phenomenon caused by cis-trans isomerization and ring opening and closure. Chemicals of these properties are used as the component of core materials that are employed when making microcapsules. Photochromic dye can be used as it is and changed into many different colors, depending on its structure.

INSILICO provides various kinds of thermochromic and photochromic dyes and is making its best to improve the quality of existing products and develop new functional materials through continuous R&D, eventually aiming to be a global leader in functional material industry.

In broad sense, flow improver provides such properties as controlling Newtonian behaviors and increasing or decreasing viscosity. When applied to low molecular weight or oligomer type, it is used to decrease viscosity or improve the characteristics of second processing such as dispersion, leveling and/or mating through the action of the solution. Melting correspondence can be defined as having functions like enabling melting process with resin hard to process due to low heat resistance, while minimizing the property change of final output.

A sensing system of hazardous materials, which is very expensive, has already been used in processing. Portable sensing devices to measure concentration have also been developed and placed in market, though still in primary stage. However, accidents related to the leakage of hazardous material break out beyond regular process monitoring scope and due to the handling of non-professional or general user. Therefore, it is very necessary to establishing a proper early warning system against leaking chemicals. The best way is to prevent the leakage of hazardous material. However, it seems inevitable to have outflow or leakage accidents. Therefore, the real best solution to overcome them is to minimize the damage with proper initial response.

It is important and necessary to have a detection device that enables early warning at operator level. For such device to be qualified as expected, there are some requirements to be met. First, it should be economic enough for an individual to have and use. Second, it should be easy to understand and know how to use with minimum education and training. Insilico is currently developing solid-state or gel film-based color transformation detection system that is the most ideal system to satisfy industry requirements.

We will design and produce cool business wears that are characterized with initial and long-lasting cool feel by developing the manufacturing and processing technology for fabric and knitting with superior thermal conductivity and the Sheath(Nylon)-Core(polyester)-structured quick cooling multi-lobal composite threads using heterogeneous inorganic particles. Now, we are carrying out R&D to solve existing problems of cool materials innovatively. Through the development of non-formaldehyde menthol microcapsules, Insilico is realizing sense-satisfying and initial cool feel materials.