CCP's Research and Development laboratory is located in new facilities at the company's headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. At this site, a team of more than 60 chemists with a broad and complementary spectrum of expertise and experience work to support our company's businesses.

The R&D department is essentially structured into five groups:

Composite Resins Laboratory (mainly for unsaturated polyester resins)
Gel Coats Laboratory
Coatings Resins Laboratory (for alkyd, acrylics and polyester resins)
Emulsions Laboratory (for acrylic and styrene acrylic technologies)
Corporate R&D Laboratory for:

- Corporate analytical support
- Pilot operations
- Key strategic long-term projects

Analytical Services

Specialized equipment available to CCP's analytical laboratory team includes:

• Controlled stress rheometer
  
• Chromatography methods: pyrolysis, GC-MS, GPC, HPLC
  
• Mechanical testing
  
• NMR, FTIR, atomic absorption
  
• Thermo mechanical analysis: Modulated DSC, DMTA

This level of support is reinforced through CCP's participation in ATOFINA Resin Division's Central Analytical Laboratory Network. It is this network that gives CCP unsurpassed access to the latest analytical tools and technology and ultimately provides more comprehensive service to our customers.

Kansas City Pilot Facilities

CCP has recently completed construction of a state of the art, 5000 square-foot pilot plant located at CCP's Kansas City headquarters. This new facility is easily accessible to both Corporate R&D and CCP's Kansas City manufacturing plant.

Some of the features of the new pilot plant are:

• 60 gallon reactor with two 120-gallon tanks
  
• 10 gallon reactor with one 20-gallon tank
  
• Rated at 200 PSI and full vacuum (28 in. Hg), 300 C
  
• Variable speed agitation (20-200 rpm)
  
• Thermal oxidizer

This new site can accommodate polymerization reactions such as poly condensation and free radical addition. The equipment is also well-adapted for the preparation of water-based dispersions.