OCDIS: Optical compensation for displays

• Unité de recherche: PCRD EU
• Numéro de projet: 99.0266-2
• Titre du projet anglais: OCDIS: Optical compensation for displays

Mots-clé (Anglais)

Status of production of the LPP and LCP materials developed by ROLIC for viewing-angle enhancing film

Autre Numéro de projet (Anglais)

EU project number: IST-1999-12085

Programme de recherche (Anglais)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.2.4 Essential technologies and infrastructures

Description succincte (Anglais)

See abstract

Partenaires et organisations internationales (Anglais)

Thomson CSF (F), Rolic Research (CH), Optrex (D), Thomson LCD (F)

Résumé des résultats (Abstract) (Anglais)

Summary
Appropriate LPP and LCP materials were selected for the viewing-angle enhancement film developed by Rolic. Two LCP materials were already produced several times with the scale of 100 kg per campaign by using 600 lit. reactor. Two LPP materials were produced several times with the scale of 10 kg per campaign by using 60 lit. reactor. These production processes are also suitable for larger reactor. Those materials have passed Rolic's quality check. The production capacities of LPP and LCP should be sufficient for the time being. All of the LPP and LCP materials are new chemical substances so that all materials are registered as small volume exemption and one major LCP material is under the process of full registration.
The production process and quality control are continuously improving.

Role of Vantico
Vantico is the manufacturer of photo-aligning materials (LPP) and Liquid Crystal Polymers (LCP) developed by Rolic on the basis of the alliance in the field of photo-aligning materials (LPP) and Liquid Crystal Polymers (LCP) established in 1998. Rolic's LPP and LCP is a wonderful technology to make wide variety of birefrengent optical films. Vantico is working on the large-scale production of LPP and LCP materials requires for the viewing-angle enhancement film developed in the project.

Work done by the present
As Rolic has described, LPP and LCP technology is versatile and can realize many different kind of birefrengent films. On the other hand, for a particular configuration of LPP/LCP retarder, suitable combination of LPP and LCP material should be selected for optimum manufacturing process since Rolic has developed many LPP and LCP materials in lab scale. Vantico has done the feasibility studies of production of LPP and LCP materials by using expertise as manufacturer of chemicals. The economics of those materials in the market was also studied with Vantico's marketing competence in the field. Several LPP materials and a few LCP materials have been chosen for scaling-up. Those materials are suitable for the viewing-angle enhancement film been proposing by Rolic. All of those materials need multi-step synthesis and each consists of at least 5 steps. It has been huge work to evaluate different synthetic routs and optimising the best route.
Two LCP materials were already produced several times with the scale of 100 kg per campaign by using 600 lit. reactor. The production processes are designed for higher scale and it can be scaled up to 2500 lit. reactor with minor modification. This would mean around 5 tons of LCP can be produced annually. The market size of Fuji WV film is estimated 7'000'000 m2 this year. LCP material of 5 tons is calculated ca 4'000'000 m2 for Rolic's viewing-angle enhancement film and it should be definitely sufficient for the time being. Two LPP materials were produced several times with the scale of 10 kg per campaign by using 60 lit. reactor. These production processes are also suitable for larger reactor. Since the volume demand of LPP is match smaller than LCP materials in the magnitude of more than 10, the production capacity of LPP should also be sufficient. Those materials have passed Rolic's quality check.
All of the LPP and LCP materials are new chemical substances and the registration issue has to be considered. At the moment, all materials are registered as small volume exemption in major countries and one major LCP material is under the process of full registration.
To produce LPP and LCP materials with constant quality and improve production process, the process of quality control is under improvement. More efficient QC process is desirable.

Références bases de données (Anglais)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 99.0266-2