The Engineering Materials division of Dutch chemical group DSM (Heerlen; www.dsm.com) has launched an artificial intelligence-based colour and mechanical properties prediction tool called Lucidiris, which aims to reduce time to market when developing colours for high-performance materials.

DSM claims Lucidiris helps facilitate the development of material recipes with targeted optical properties, and shortens development times compared to traditional design-test-learn development cycles. “Lucidiris can prescribe the recipe of colour ingredients to add to a polymer compound to meet targeted properties, predict colour and mechanical properties of the polymer compounds upon addition of the colour ingredients, and predict the envelope of potential color space that can be produced within the critical mechanical properties,” the company adds.

Developed initially for high-performance material grades, the tool is likely to be extended to include recycled-based and repurposed materials.