WIGAN, England — Bitrez Ltd., a leading manufacturer of specialist polymers and chemicals in the UK, has won the Chemicals Northwest International Trade Award 2020 for the product Curamine.

Recognized for its ability to develop a REACH (registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals) compliant Ketamine alternative, which not only outperforms the traditional Ketamines now withdrawn from the European market, but has exports across the world that are forecasted to double in 2020.

Launched in 2017, Bitrez’s Curamine ketamines are a grade of REACH compliant Ketamine curing agent alternatives that are characterized by their low viscosity and excellent reactivity profile.  Curamine is used in specialist coatings as it offers a long pot life and rapid thin film cure.

Due to Curamine’s resistance to water, alkali and acids, applications include coatings for concrete, steel, marine, flooring and adhesives.

Paul Jones, Bitrez’s Managing Director, said, “We developed Curamine to combat the void in the market with the withdrawal of traditional Ketamines as they were not REACH compliant. Curamine has been supplied across the world. We have used cutting edge chemistry within our R&D labs to develop this curing agent.

“We are all very proud of this product and to be recognized by Chemicals Northwest for all the hard work is fantastic. We couldn’t have done it without the support of our customers, suppliers and exemplary staff.”

Established in 1982, Bitrez offers a range of services from R&D to toll conversion as well as technical support. Its team of chemists can produce materials from laboratory scale through a transient pilot stage to enable scale up and allow for small-scale qualification work before moving to commercial manufacture.

The awards ceremony was due to take place in March, however, due to the current pandemic, it did not happen. The Bitrez team will receive the award in September from a member of Chemicals Northwest.