Knowledge transfer relaunches an entrepreneurial project

Mercè Segarra.
Mercè Segarra.
(11/01/2013)

The company La Farga Lacambra, whose corporate purpose is the production and sale of semi-finished copper products, has been colaborating continuously since 1996 with the the Process and Material Design and Optimisation Centre (DIOPMA) of the UB. This cooperative work between university and enterprise, which received the Antoni Caparrós Prize in the last Awards of the UB Board of Trustees and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation, has led to the development of new cooper alloys to apply on railway electrification, innovating then its production process. DIOPMAʼs technology and knowledge transfer has contributed to the companyʼs success. The company was able to overcome its suspension of payments situation, and became one of the best firms of the sector.

Mercè Segarra.
Mercè Segarra.
11/01/2013

The company La Farga Lacambra, whose corporate purpose is the production and sale of semi-finished copper products, has been colaborating continuously since 1996 with the the Process and Material Design and Optimisation Centre (DIOPMA) of the UB. This cooperative work between university and enterprise, which received the Antoni Caparrós Prize in the last Awards of the UB Board of Trustees and the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation, has led to the development of new cooper alloys to apply on railway electrification, innovating then its production process. DIOPMAʼs technology and knowledge transfer has contributed to the companyʼs success. The company was able to overcome its suspension of payments situation, and became one of the best firms of the sector.

An example of the positive evolution of the company over the last few years is that in 2008 it had a total turnover of 670 million euros and, in 2011 it was of 1,082 million euros. It has also created more than fifty job positions. Moreover, in 2009 La Farga Lacambra received the Environment Prize of the Government of Catalonia for the technologies that it developed together with DIOPMA.

 
The research group DIOPMA, affiliated to the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering at the Faculty of Chemistry of the UB, is composed by Mercè Segarra, Ferran Espiell, Josep M. Chimenos and Ana Inés Fernández Renna. The researchers, who have been working in close collaboration with the R+D staff of the company, have attained important challenges in the field of environmental technology and the design of new materials from a process of cooper recycling. This cooperative work has led to the publication of four articles in several prestigious journals, to obtain six patents and to apply for three.  
 
The first collaboration, which took place seventeen years ago, resulted in an exclusive and innovative technology to alloy that produces a cooper purer than 99.90 % from a secondary cooper. This technology saves resources and energy but also constitutes an environmental improvement. Getting a high conductivity wire by this eco-friendly technology has made La Farga Lacambra be the first company in the sector to produce this product from a secondary raw material. Thanks to it, the company has opened new markets, national and international ones, has diversified its range of products and has widened the possible applications of the product. Up to now, it has built fifteen plants all over the world (United States, China, Cuba, Italy, Korea, Iran and Mexico, among other countries).