Optimize an existing product
The advent of intelligent materials to improve an existing product
OliKrom is an industrial leader of smart materials
We exploit the intelligence of colors to replace a product while preserving its original color, to optimize an existing material by improving its lightfastness, or to add a new functionality to interact with customers...
Let's review your existing product, its performance or its design together!
4 reasons to rethink an existing product
Recreate the color of a product identically
The pigment charge at the origin of the color of your product can become problematic for regulatory, technical, economic or resource depletion reasons.
Our mastery of color and its components allows us to replace the targeted material in the composition of your product, while preserving the original color that represents the identity of your brand on its market..
- Our R&D teams will first characterize the color, then break it down into physical properties of spectral distribution of wavelengths, opacity, brightness, etc.
- Then, we recreate the material through molecular engineering. Each of the components will be optimized within a single material (by successive alloying), or even a mixture of single pigments selected, for example, for their natural resources.
Rethinking a product to address environmental issues
Do you want to limit the impact of the heating of a product in the sun? The problem of urban heat islands represents a major environmental challenge for the construction sector, with new market opportunities to conquer.
One of our strengths is our multidisciplinary approach. This alchemy between materials science and photochemistry allows our research and development teams to rethink the architecture of an existing product. Depending on the nature of your project and materials, we optimize the albedo of products, the coefficients of reflectivity, absorption, emission, etc.
Some customer requests lead us to create products with so-called "cold" colors, to limit as much as possible the interactions with the sun and its consequences on the heating of our cities in summer. Other improvements are leading our teams to develop materials capable of darkening with the sun, in order to create natural shadow.
Improve the product performance
- To optimize the light fastness of an existing material (matrix), we first study the degradation processes using our equipment: accelerated aging chambers, climatic chambers, etc. The analysis of these data allows us to identify the solution. Then, we rethink the design of the product to improve the new product: modify the pigment, propose a matrix and/or add additives to block the photodegradation process.
- To enhance the luminescent properties of an object, we need to rethink the photochemical cascade involved during the excitation and relaxation processes. We adjust the respective positions of the various excited states to improve the fluorescence and/or phosphorescence quantum yields as well as the day and night color rendering. This approach is performed at the pigment scale but also within the matrix for maximum optimization.
Add a new feature to an existing product
Are you planning to redesign an existing product or a concept that has already proven in the past? Smart materials offer multiple opportunities to introduce functionality, to revisit a product, to improve the customer experience, to give it a second life.
The integration of an intelligent material allows the product's color to become adaptive to its environment, for example an electric toaster that becomes sensitive to temperature to indicate excessive heat and a risk for a child.
We adjust the optical properties of materials on demand. Depending on market (marketing, design...) expectations, we develop smart coatings that are reactive to temperature, light (photochromic and luminescent), pressure, and the presence of a solvent or gas.
Your innovation, research or marketing departments are the best to describe the desired effect, the market & marketing needs, customer expectations, the brand target, the product line.
Based on this information, we will work together to develop the specifications for your project. Our experts in materials science and photochemistry will be able to define achievable objectives while taking into account your deadlines and create the desired functionality.
In all discretion, we accompany the improvement of your existing products.
From proof of concept to industrialization
Today, we accompany the innovation process of customers on a national and international scale.
We regularly transform ideas into intelligent products and our teams are used to interacting with the research, innovation and development, marketing and design, purchasing, legal and quality departments.
- Our Research Department adjusts the performance of the product : detection thresholds, reversibility (or irreversibility), optical properties (color, luminescence...),
- Our Process Department adapts the matrix to your industrial requirements (viscosity, drying time, composition, tinting, etc.),
- After development, our factory ensures the production from kilo to ton/day and the quality of our products is controlled at each step.
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