Jiva Wins Innovate UK SMART Grant
As of 1st October 2019, Jiva will be leading a 30-month project funded by the Innovate UK SMART Grant scheme. The project is titled ‘Efficient Manufacturing of Recyclable Composite Laminates for Electrical Goods (ReCollect)’. Jiva will be partnering with Coventive Composites and the Institute of Circuit Technology.
Innovate UK works with people, companies and partner organisations to find and drive the science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy – delivering productivity, new jobs and exports. The aim for Innovate UK is to keep the UK globally competitive in the race for future prosperity.
With a total project cost of approximately £800,000, Jiva has been able to secure approximately £300,000 of funding from the UK government. The project focuses on an alternative way of managing end-of-life circuit boards. Rather than producing boards from difficult-to-recycle fibreglass-epoxy, the project will focus on the efficient commercialisation of Soluboard® within the UK.
The primary aim of this project is to demonstrate the feasibility of producing Soluboard® in high volumes and to show that the resulting PCBs can match the performance of glass-epoxy laminates. This will be obtained using a novel process in development by Coventive Composites which allows the continuous production of sheet material.
Part of the NetComposites Group, Coventive will be working with Jiva using their in-house innovation centre and team of scientists and engineers to develop and commercialise Soluboard®. Jiva has also secured the dissemination services of the Institute of Circuit Technology (ICT) for the duration of the project, whereby any future innovations generated by the project partners will be shared at their regular seminars throughout the UK.
Jiva’s successful Innovate UK project application has provided the opportunity to recruit two further employees subject to external funding. Using the funding from the grant, Jiva has been able to secure the services of Steven Curtis who will be monitoring the development of Soluboard® to ensure its effective commercialisation. In an attempt to effectively penetrate Jiva’s target markets within the PCB industry, Jiva has also secured the services of Steve Driver.
Jiva is certain that the acquisition of both Steven Curtis’ and Steve Driver’s skillsets will contribute to the continued growth of the company.