Formeric Ltd puts supercomputing into the hands of formulation scientist for the development of improved surfactant-based products.

With an annual global market predicted to grow from $36 billion in 2017 to $45 billion by 2022, surfactants are widely used in applications ranging from cleaning products in home and personal care settings, through controlled drug release systems, friction modifiers, to remediation of contaminated soils. A major driver for innovation is the need to support decarbonisation of the market by moving away from petrochemicals, and traditional plant-based feedstocks, towards sustainably sourced raw materials. These challenges can be met in part by the be met in part by deployment of predictive computer-aided formulation design and engineering approaches.

Whilst is becoming increasingly recognised that access to high performance computing and sophisticated predictive simulation methods can shave months off time-to-market, it is a complex process and can be a daunting task without an in-house specialist and significant computational hardware.

Recently, STFC has spun out a company offering easy access to cloud-based simulations of formulated products. Formeric Ltd builds upon over a decade of developments in the simulation of formulated products by the team at the Hartree Centre, allowing formulation scientists to evaluate the performance of candidates prior to commencing lab trials, without the need for prior computational knowledge. This approach can decrease the time to screen new molecules and their compatibility, increasing the likelihood of identifying the desired formulation. With this approach it is possible to screen a number of candidates in-silico in a fraction of the time taken for lab trials. 

Cleaning products, cleaner fuels, and more sustainable crop protection products — these are just some of the widely varying consumer and industrial goods that could benefit from this capability. Company needs can all be very different, but they all have in common the need to understand the ingredients they use as quickly and efficiently as possible.