Cambium Launches New High-Temperature Resin System for Aerospace Manufacturers That Reduces Hypersonic Parts Fabrication by 70-80%

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., April 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Cambium, revolutionizing the discovery and delivery of mission-critical advanced materials for defense and high-performance applications, announces the launch of its breakthrough ApexShield 1000 high-temperature resin system. The breakthrough allows parts fabricators to massively increase the speed of carbon-carbon parts production for hypersonics glide bodies and other critical components such as rocket nozzle extensions. The same resin system also brings significant benefits to ablative applications, from solid rocket motor nozzles to ship vertical launch tubes.

Cambium utilized its AI-driven material discovery to optimize the processing and production of phthalonitrile-based resin systems in collaboration with US Department of Defense laboratories, industry partners and the Bioindustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem (BioMADE). The optimized resin system reduces carbon-carbon parts fabrication to 1-2 polymer infiltration and pyrolysis (PIP) cycles, a reduction of 70% - 80% over legacy systems. Cambium is the first to achieve this PIP cycle breakthrough, which will allow parts manufactures to cut production time from 6-9 months to 1-2 months — and reduce costs proportionately.

Our Thermal Protection Resin System has a low melt viscosity that is ideal for Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VaRTM) or Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) applications. This system is room temperature stable, eliminating the need for freezer storage, and is being produced at metric-ton scale.

"Carbon-carbon part production is a serious bottleneck holding back the rapid and cost-effective production of hypersonic-ready products. Cambium's solution dramatically increases the production throughput with breakthrough advanced materials that can be processed utilizing existing infrastructure wholly within a domestic supply chain," said Nate Monroe, Cambium Vice President of Composite Products. "These new phthalonitrile material systems deliver a whole new level of production speed and capacity to the US DoD, prime contractors and subcontractors, a key priority for US defense today.

About Cambium

Cambium is redefining advanced materials innovation. Our goal is to be a world-leader in the development and production of advanced materials for defense and dual-use applications, products that enhance survivability for personnel and systems. Our innovations arise from the challenges faced by the military across land, air, sea and space, for example protecting payloads during hypersonic flight and shielding sensors and human eyesight from laser attacks. Cambium's first-of-its-kind advanced material development platform molecularly re-engineers polymers from first principles for exceptional performance, survivability and manufacturability using a suite of computational methods combined with state-of-the-art materials science, chemistry and biology. We manufacture products in a secure domestic supply chain using flexible production systems that offer defense customers and other innovators the speed and flexibility to develop critical products. Visit cambium-usa.com.

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SOURCE Cambium Biomaterials, Inc