Operating various machines by myself was also a useful skill to gain. I also got to bring some of my own knowledge to the table to help with development and experiments, or possible explanations to things. It gave me real insight into what working in the materials industry is really like and how a business works. The fact it was paid is always a benefit too!

Throughout the year I had a variety of tasks, and the work I was doing would mainly depend on the most important project at that time, or work for customers or investors. My work was focused on polymer processing. I would do a lot of compounding of polymers with various additives, including IPL’s, to produce polymer blends. Generally, I would then carry out standard tests on the pellets such as capillary rheology/MFI etc. and would also blow films or extrude tapes (injection moulding and sheet extrusion too, but less often). Using these films or tapes I could then gain mechanical test data, such as tensile and tear data, but also optical data too such as haze, clarity and gel numbers. I would then need to analyse the data, plot graphs, find explanations and present this to the wider team, one day per week. Although I spent the majority of my time in the processing labs, I also spent time in the chemistry lab in order to use the rotational rheometers for further testing and analysis. Spending time in this lab gave me the opportunity to understand the chemical side of the subject more too.