Andaltec has carried out more than 1,300 technologies services to companies from eleven countries along 2019. The centre’s international activity has been reinforced, providing technological and consulting services and co-operating with companies and entities from all over the world.
The technological centre counted with 163 customers from Germany, Ecuador, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, Morocco, Portugal. Romania, the USA and Spain. These figures show an 11% increase in the number of customers compared to 2018.The most requested technological services belong to the Prototyping and Lab areas. In Prototyping, the most popular activities have been part machining, additive manufacturing, vacuum casting moulds, as well as design, manufacture and validation of short series of products for different sectors. This department has also developed very similar prototypes to the final product, which allows for companies to correct any possible problems before the actual manufacture and marketing processes of the product.
Regarding the lab in the technological centre, the most requested activities have been migration testing and accelerated ageing tests, product dimensional control and material characterisation. Andaltec is certified by ENAC to carry out global migration testing in olive oil and in water simulants by immersion, by bag-method or filling tests. These migration analyses have been requested by food plastic film companies, as well as by food packaging industries. This migration testing makes sure that forbidden substances aren’t transferred from packaging to food, making them risk-free for the consumers’ health.
R&D projects
In addition, 2019 has seen plenty of R&D project development for Andaltec. The researchers in the Foundation have carried out 18 innovation activities, in full cooperation with national and international companies and entities. Among others, we could highlight the European project LIFE Compolive, with Andaltec in a leading role. This initiative is aimed at the development of a new generation of biocomposites based on olive grove pruning waste. Another project has been LIFE Plasmix, which focuses on new processes to recycle plastic materials to be used in the automotive and food packaging areas. Other major European projects have continued their research activity, such as Grafood (development of innovative graphene-based food packaging) or Essial (performance and functionality upgrade of laminated magnetic circuits by means of laser surface texturing).
2019 has also brought the implementation of new technological services, such as thermal shock testing in our climatic chamber. This type of analysis can be applied to materials and components for the automotive, aeronautics or electronics sectors. On the other hand, the technological centre has also carried out an intense training activity, organising and taking part in courses and seminars for companies and public entities. We have attended as well the main international events on plastics and its allied sectors, such as the K Trade Fair in Germany.
