How We Began
On December 7 1972 the crew of Apollo 17 captured the famous and moving photograph of a tiny, blue planet floating in space - like a lonely blue marble. For the first time it was clear just how unique, fragile and vulnerable our planet is.
This iconic image inspired the founders of Blue Marble Polymers (BMP) to develop new technologies that will help preserve the future of the fragile and small blue marble that we live on.
in 1998 we set out to develop alternatives to plastic foams. By 2000 we could demonstrate a functional alternative to EPS foam, and Blue Marble Polymers was incorporated in New Zealand.
Our Foam
Following the 2000 proof of concept, Blue Marble Polymers developed unique material formulations and processing systems to produce a thermoplastic biodegradable resin that can be moulded into energy absorbing foam shapes.
BMP technology is a fusion of starch, extrusion, moulding and microwave heating technologies. A key challenge was achieving accurate process control of several novel processes.
Blue Marble Polymers has licensed our foam technology to Novamont Spa of Italy, and it is a core technology of Novamont's Rebiofoam Project.
Between 2009 and 2014 a 10-strong EU consortium undertook the scale up of Rebiofoam. Participants in the successful project came from 8 different countries (Italy, Poland, Spain, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) and included Novamont, C-Tech Innovation, FEN and Chemtex Italia, Fraunhofer Institut, Czech Technical University, ITENE, Complas Pack, Recticel and Electrolux.
The Pivot
Foam development taught us a lot about novel process control methods. In 2015 we started experimenting with novel controller architectures based on recently developed SOC (System on a Chip) devices. These experiments became Series 1 and Series 2 of the BMP series of controllers. Series 2 is still available for very small processors and low power applications.
In 2016 we agreed to supply custom software technology to our Japanese distributor. Series 3 software shipped in 2019, offering a tenfold increase in control speed and much increased accuracy compared to previous controllers.
In 2020 we released Series 4. BMP built the hardware as well as software for Series 4. Series 4 doubles the speed of Series 3, reduces the cost, and is designed as an OEM part. Both Series 3 and Series 4 are still available from our Japanese distributor.
Series 5
With 8 years of in-market experience and after two years of intense development, in 2023 BMP Controls released our Series 5 Controllers.
With Series 5 both the hardware and software have been re-imagined and re-engineered.
These controllers are designed to be networked and can be controlled over the web or by direct connection.
The internal PID engine runs much faster than the engine in Series 3 or Series 4.
Series 5 is a platform that introduces a new level of performance and fault tolerance to TEC Controllers.