Welcome to the Neo Beam Website.  This site is dedicated to the Neo Beam Facility in Middlefield Ohio.  Neo Beam Alliance Ltd. (NEO Beam) is a limited liability corporation that signals an innovative partnership between higher education and industry designed to boost economic development and produce a skilled workforce in emerging technologies.

The partners in NEO Beam Alliance are Mercury Plastics, Inc. (MPI), a Geauga County custom plastics extrusion and fabrication company; and the Kent Regional Business Alliance (KRBA), a non-profit organization affiliated with Kent State University. The manufacturing facility, which includes a nearly $3 million, high-energy, Dynamitron electron beam (EB) accelerator, made by Radiation Dynamics, Inc., RDI, is used jointly by MPI and KRBA. MPI uses the beam to crosslink its specialty plastic products. KRBA provides beam time to Kent State, which uses the facility for research, academic programs and training through the School of Technology.

KRBA also leases the facility to business and industry interested in taking advantage of this powerful material processing technology. The NEO Beam facility is designed to support the economical treatment of a wide variety of products in the rubber, plastics, composites, electronics, biomedical, food, environmental and semi-conductor industries.

Benefits of the electron beam

Using the electron beam in industrial applications has many benefits.  Crosslinking changes thermoplastic materials into thermosets and cures rubber.  When a product is crosslinked, the molecules within the material are changed.  The molecules in these materials tend to move rather freely.  As temperature rises, these uncrosslinked materials soften and finally melt.  When they are irradiated, the molecules are crosslinked.  In other words, they are slowed down, and become more resistant to heat.  They become locked together and form more stable bonds.  Benefits of this crosslinking include:

- Increased material strength
- Increased material stability
- Resistance to deformation
- Resistance to chemical solvents
- Shrink memory
- More stress cracking resistance

In terms of biological benefits, the benefits are numerous.  With respect to food stuffs, the benefits include the disinfestation or elimination  of insects from grain, tobacco, and other unprocessed bulk crops.  The second benefit involve the complete sterilization of medical products and aseptic packaging of materials for foods.  In other words, the electron beam can be used to sterilize medical equipment and food packaging.

NEO Beam Alliance Limited
P.O. Box 1028
15825 Old State Road
Middlefield, Ohio 44062