R & D Capacity
With more than 150 years of experience, we truly understand the power of innovation and its potential for value creation.
The Rain Carbon Inc. research-and-development teams thrive at improving the properties of our products to maximize performance. We anticipate our customers' future needs and develop sustainable solutions to improve their business performance. This can take the form of reducing the consumption of energy or raw materials, by decreasing the impact on the workplace and environment, or by improving the properties of the end products.
Thanks to the efforts of our R&D team, the properties of coal tar pitch (CTP) have improved significantly in recent decades. In 2001, the high-performance binder CARBORES®, a RÜTGERS innovation, was introduced to the market. CARBORES® contains 90 percent fewer toxic substances than traditional electrode binder materials, and has opened up new markets and opportunities -- especially in the refractory industry.
In 2013, the R&D experts from our Rain CII and RÜTGERS business joined forces under the RCI umbrella to optimize the use of calcined petroleum coke (CPC) and CTP in the manufacture of anodes for production of aluminum. We now operate a state-of-the-art pilot anode facility in Castrop-Rauxel, Germany, and have extensive development work underway to improve the performance of anode materials. We have been industry leaders in this area, and have published more than 20 technical papers and patents over the last 15 years.