Continuous Innovation

The transformation industry is constantly adapting its products to the growing needs of the users with a continuous product innovation process.

Copper is a material that is always used in innovative sectors, such as electronics and its offshoots, even if its presence is not always seen since the copper based component is almost always incorporated into the finished product.

Copper components are in fact widely used in most electronic devices, in cars, or wherever there is the need to connect electrical wiring. We use it every day without even realizing it, when we do ordinary things such as using a mobile phone or a computer, or power windows, a DVD player or a household appliance.

Copper is used (pure or its alloys) because its properties allow individual devices to operate faster, reduce the formation of heat and last longer: basically to give them higher performance.

The constant and rapid evolution of electronic devices also ensures that the copper component is requested in order to provide better performance in ever smaller spaces. KME has fully met this request, collaborating with the downstream industries (electronics and automotive) and developing materials made of special copper alloys that have a high added value, such as for example the STOL® alloys .

KME has also made important product innovations in other sectors: such as moulds with special coatings or inner grooved tubes to improve the exchange of heat or special tubes for the distribution of medical gas or cupro-nickel tubing for ship building applications or even the products in our solar heating line.

Product innovation at KME also involves more traditional sectors, such as the building sector: With regard to copper tubes, for example, we introduced passivation and stabilization treatments to the inner walls of SANCO® copper tubes for use in the distribution of drinking water in order to provide a guarantee against any corrosion problems. We also created the new Q-Tec® reduced thickness copper tube with a firmly attached polythene covering which combines the advantages of the metal tube (lighter, more flexible) and improves competitiveness with respect to products made of other materials.

This also pertains to rolled copper products for roof coverings, facades and tinsmith accessories (gutters, rainwater downpipes, etc.). KME has successfully developed special products under the trademark TECU®, a series of rolled copper products subjected to patented treatments in order to obtain special surfaces (patinated, polished, gilded, coloured), but also covering systems (such as shingles, staves, cassettes, corrugated or drilled plates) which have given copper more versatile use in building applications and have found great success with architects and designers, providing extremely prestigious finishings. In relation to this, we should also mention TECU® Bond, a recent innovation of rolled copper composites: thin layers of copper are applied to a polythene core at high pressure, making the product perfect for use in facades, here too improving the competitiveness with respect to products made of other materials.