Sunstrand’s products and operations have been designed to deliver consistent, high quality materials compatible with a large number of applications and a particular emphasis on providing bulk feedstocks for the plastics, polymer composites and non-woven manufacturing industries.
Prior to starting Sunstrand, Dr. Riddle founded Gradient Engineering, Inc in an effort to supply innovative design, material evaluations, research and development services to meet the needs of a growing composites industry. Seeing a growing interest in biocomposites, the team at Gradient began to monitor and research the area. The real work began when Gradient won a Small Business Innovative Research award from the prestigious National Science Foundation. This work pioneered the extraction of bamboo fiber from raw bamboo cane and the conversion of these fibers to forms compatible with polymer composites. During this work it became apparent that there was a need for a reliable supplier of biomaterials that understands the composites industry.
During the summer of 2014, Sunstrand was formed, not only to commercialize on the bamboo developments at Gradient, but to meet the needs of an industry by providing biomaterials and processing services. The company is located in Louisville, Kentucky which is in close proximity to agricultural feedstock suppliers and customers. Sunstrand now works with a variety of feedstocks including bamboo, hemp, kenaf, flax and jute. Sunstrand utilizes a team consisting of Mechanical Engineers, Chemical Engineers, Mechanical Engineering Technologists, Material Scientists and Technicians. The team has highly specialized composites design, manufacturing and testing experience. We come from broad industries such as wind energy, paper, snowsports, biomass, automotive, academia and aerospace.
