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The Ignite® Program

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At Harper, we’re committed to helping you succeed. Hundreds of companies have used our Technology Research Center for process development and process optimization as they work toward commercial scale-up or system specifications enabling unique processes. 

Customers can utilize numerous pilot furnaces onsite to gather data and fine tune their processes, with a focus on varying production rates, temperature regimes, processing times, atmosphere compositions, and flow rates. This Ignite® Program results in significant project definition to improve the product quality, project timeline, and residual risk for new thermal process systems.

A wide variety of thermal systems are operated at Harper’s Technology Research Center that can handle your process conditions. Harper’s engineers further have the ability to make modifications to tailor the existing pilot equipment to your process requirements. The range of equipment includes:

  • Continuous and batch furnaces
  • Pilot and lab scale furnaces with 5-30 liter hot zones and up to 3 temperature zones
  • Furnace conditions from atmospheric to nitrogen or specialty gases, with temperatures up to 2500°C
Along with thermal system piloting, Harper partners with local laboratories to provide state-of-the-art analytical capabilities to help transfer your technology from the lab to the global marketplace. Our comprehensive range of analytical capabilities include:

  • High temperature thermal diffusivity
  • SEM/EDX 
  • Electron microprobe 
  • Qualitative and Quantitative powder XRD
  • High temperature XRD
  • Particle size analysis
  • Surface area measurement
  • DTA and TGA
  • Thermal and elemental

As a result of the Harper Technology Research Center experience in testing and feasibility, many customers work with Harper to conduct in-depth studies to determine equipment requirements and help define process parameters for optimal plant design to assist with technical and business strategy and financial planning.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Carbon Fiber Technology Center

Additionally, Harper offers a partner research facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Carbon Fiber Technology Center. With support from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) program office, this 42,000 sq. ft. (3,900 m²) technology facility serves as a national testbed for government and industrial partners to scale up emerging carbon fiber technology. The 390 ft. (119 m) long processing line at this DOE facility was engineered and manufactured by Harper, and is the ideal outlet for carbon fiber research and development.