Materials science company Royal DSM, headquartered in Heerlen, Netherlands, announced today the opening of its research and technology center in Troy, MI. The facility will strengthen DSM Engineering Plastics' product development and application development capabilities in North America, and will enable it to collaborate more closely and efficiently with its customers, said the company.

Material characterization resources and other technologies at the facility include:

A section of the lab will be dedicated to application testing in partnership with customers and will include novel test set ups to achieve a better understanding of the performance of DSM materials under field conditions.

DSM already anticipates expanding the Tech Center in 2017. Additional floor space is available to allow for increasing capacity of the current testing activities, and for introducing further capabilities, including flammability testing and secondary operations such as plastic welding. DSM also plans to add more advanced material-characterization techniques to the facility to support product development, along with more application-specific testing.

DSM operates other research and technology centers in Europe, China, Japan and India.

"The launch of this new research center is in line with DSM's strategy to support and grow its business, not only with customers in the U.S., but globally," said Rein Borggreve, Vice President - Research & Technology for DSM Engineering Plastics. "Many of our accounts run global businesses, so we can serve our customers worldwide, with a local footprint."