LANXESS to deploy artificial intelligence in product development

Ø Much faster development of high-performance plastics Ø Partnership with materials AI leader Citrine Informatics Cologne: LANXESS is set to break new ground when it comes to the development of customer-specific high-performance plastics. By deploying artificial intelligence (AI), the specialty chemicals company is looking to drastically cut the amount of time it takes to develop new materials. For this, LANXESS has entered into close collaboration with Citrine Informatics, a U.S.-based AI company specializing in data-driven materials development. The two companies have launched a pilot project aimed at gauging the potential of AI for the plastics production. The aim is to further optimize the glass fibers that LANXESS uses for reinforcing many of its high-performance plastics and ultimately to enhance the performance of the materials. Glass fiber sizing plays a key role here. Glass fibers that are mixed with the plastics to increase their mechanical performance are surrounded with a sizing. This helps the glass fibers to bond more strongly with the plastic matrix, ultimately ensuring the properties required of high-performance plastics. The process of optimizing glass fiber sizing is complex, laborious and time-consuming. “We expect AI to cut the development time for optimized formulations by more than half,” says Dr. Axel Tuchlenski, Head of Global Product and Application Development in the LANXESS High Performance Materials business unit. “This will enable us to not only offer our customers even better tailor-made products, but also reduce time to market.”