Specialty Organics, Inc. has been a family-owned specialty chemical manufacturer in southern California since 1962 and has had a reputation for providing custom process configuration for research, development, and tailored scale-up services since 1975. The company’s expertise includes custom synthesis, toll manufacturing, and pilot plant services, designed to meet the needs of clients ranging from small startups to large corporations. Pilot plant services are an integral part of our offerings, bridging the gap between laboratory research and full-scale production within a well equipped pilot plant.
What are pilot plant services?
Pilot plant services are a key part of our process, where new chemical formulations are tested and refined in preparation for full scale manufacturing in a pilot plant environment. These pilot plant services enable clients to verify and optimize product designs under conditions that mimic real-world production processes found in a full scale operation. For example, it allows them to establish baseline performance data to properly size heat exchangers, distillation columns, cooling equipment, boilers, dryers, or any other type of process equipment.
Clients may also find that a certain technology is more reliable, compatible, efficient, or has a better cost structure in a manufacturing setting than a technology used to produce small research quantities in the laboratory. For instance, oftentimes a different, more abundant catalyst is used in a high-throughput environment versus the laboratory. A pilot plant also gives engineers and scientists a chance to work out or debug any unanticipated issues. This saves costly changes (and downtime) involved with retrofitting an existing full scale production facility, while also ensuring that the new products will meet quality standards and performance expectations.
Key features of our pilot plant services
- Scale-up capabilities: Specialty Organics’ pilot plant services offer the opportunity for clients to evaluate a scaled-up version of their process, converting laboratory techniques to production scale processes while meeting the expected level of consistency, efficiency, and quality. Our experienced team collaborates with clients to ensure the scaling process goes smoothly, offering focused guidance, labor to assist with process assembly, and adjustments as needed.
- Custom synthesis: We’re equipped to perform custom synthesis, developing chemical compounds to customer specifications with our pilot plant. Our pilot plant readily allows for custom configurations to suit the client’s requirements. We perform maintenance, equipment changes, and optimization to meet performance standards, paving the way for efficient, hassle-free production.
- Toll manufacturing: We offer toll manufacturing services as part of our pilot plant services, enabling clients to produce products without investing in their own production facilities. We manage the entire process from regulatory compliance and staffing to maintaining the necessary inventory of supplies, executing production and conducting quality control, allowing our customers to focus on generating sales or new product initiatives to capitalize on the latest trends in the marketplace.
Available equipment for pilot plant testing
We are equipped with an assortment of equipment, including stainless-steel and glass-lined, jacketed mixing vessels from 5 gallons up to 500 gallons in size, all housed within our pilot plant. These mixers can handle a wide variety of material types and temperatures, providing the necessary capabilities for a majority of products involving water-based and solvent-based blends, formulations, and chemical reactions. Accessories such as distillation/reflux columns, filtration equipment, dryers, ovens, temperature controlled storage, grinders/milling equipment and characterization instruments are also available. Our pilot plant has facilities to provide chilled cooling water, hot water/steam, compressed air, and vacuum. It has a secondary containment berm, flammable liquid rated sprinklers, engineered ventilation and air extraction as well as appropriate personal safety equipment.
We have the flexibility to configure a setup that will simulate the process conditions of your product to better resemble those found in a manufacturing setting. This intermediate scale process setup allows for close control over experiments, making sure the development of products meets customer requirements through our pilot plant services. The versatility of our chemical pilot plant is a key advantage for clients, as it supports the testing of a wide range of formulations and manufacturing processes.
Key products developed in our pilot plant
One notable product developed using our pilot plant is BreezeBondTM, an environmentally friendly water-based hot press adhesive. BreezeBondTM is made from abundant, sustainable materials and is designed to meet the necessary performance standards of interior grade plywood while minimizing environmental impact and improving indoor air quality. The development of BreezeBondTM was made possible through use of our existing inventory of assorted equipment for formulating and initial testing that comprise a portion of our pilot plant‘s capabilities. Official third-party testing was performed in collaboration with a nationally recognized forest products laboratory, where testing and optimization demonstrated the final product was effective in meeting the industry standard 3-cycle soak test for interior composite wood panels of plywood.
In addition, our pilot plant is especially popular with adhesive manufacturers to evaluate a new type of adhesive formulation process or to prepare a blend of a new formulation to take back to their site for further evaluation. Sometimes these companies also find that it is convenient to use our facility to supplement their existing capacity to rapidly respond to opportunities in specialty markets as they arise. Other examples include companies seeking to blend a limited volume, application-specific formulation to be used in one of their products or refine their manufacturing process for new applications.
Why choose specialty organics for pilot plant services?
Specialty Organics offers a combination of experience, equipment, and flexibility that makes them a valuable partner for businesses in need of pilot plant services and access to a facility that is approved for both water-based formulations as well as flammable solvent-based blends. Our ability to provide custom configurations, scale-up capability, and long history of offering toll manufacturing services makes us a trusted provider for clients of all sizes. We are fully committed to providing high-quality specialty manufacturing capacity and look forward to supporting clients through every stage of the product development process.
If you are ready to take your product from the lab to market, contact us today and learn more about how our pilot plant services can help bring your vision to life.