Failure & root-cause analysis
Field returns, yield excursions, delamination, corrosion, unexplained drift. We find the mechanism, then prove it.
- Physics-of-failure investigation
- Analytical campaign design
- Defensible technical reports
Materials science · Chemistry · Chemical engineering
Materials problems, solved at the root.
GreenChemX is an independent technical consultancy for manufacturers who have run out of internal answers. We take on the failures, formulations and scale-up problems that stall programmes — and we finish with evidence, not opinion.
- Response
- 48 hA senior engineer reads your problem and replies — not a sales team.
- First technical read
- 10 daysAn initial hypothesis, a test plan and a written scope before you commit budget.
- Typical engagement
- 6–14 wksFixed scope, fixed fee, named engineers. No open-ended retainers.
Sectors served
- Semiconductors
- Photovoltaics
- Energy storage
- Specialty chemicals
- Adhesives & sealants
- Composites
What we are called in for
Four kinds of problem, one way of working.
Most of our work arrives the same way: something measurable has gone wrong, the internal team has exhausted the obvious causes, and a customer or a launch date is now at risk.
Formulation & materials selection
New chemistry, reformulation under regulatory pressure, or a substitution forced on you by a supply chain that moved.
- Design-of-experiments programmes
- Raw material qualification
- REACH / RoHS-driven reformulation
Process & scale-up engineering
The chemistry worked at 200 mL. It does not work at 2 m³. We close the gap between bench, pilot and plant.
- Mixing, heat and mass transfer
- Pilot trial design and supervision
- Technology transfer packages
Reliability & qualification
Accelerated life testing that predicts something real, and qualification evidence that survives a customer audit.
- Accelerated ageing & HALT design
- Weibull and Arrhenius modelling
- Standards-aligned test protocols
SAED · XRD · DSC — converging on one mechanism
Method
Evidence first. Opinion last.
Anyone can produce a plausible story about why a material failed. The expensive mistake is acting on the wrong one.
We work the way a good laboratory works: state the candidate mechanisms explicitly, design the smallest set of measurements that can discriminate between them, and let the data eliminate the losers. You see the reasoning, not just the conclusion — which means your team can defend it to a customer, a regulator or a court without us in the room.
- Every claim traced to a specific measurement, instrument and date
- Alternative explanations documented and explicitly ruled out
- Raw data handed over with the report — it is yours, not ours
Industries
Six sectors. One underlying discipline.
The physics does not change between a wafer and a wind blade. The failure modes, the standards and the commercial pressures very much do.
Semiconductors
Semiconductors & microelectronics
Thin-film integration, contamination control, packaging stress and the yield excursions that appear three lots after a process change.
Photovoltaics
Solar & photovoltaics
Cell and module efficiency loss, encapsulant degradation, PID and the 25-year warranty you signed against a 3-year test.
Energy storage
Batteries & energy storage
Electrode formulation, capacity fade, gas evolution, coating defects and the gap between coin-cell data and a shipping pack.
Chemicals
Specialty chemicals
Reaction development, impurity tracking, solvent replacement and the scale-up that behaves nothing like the laboratory promised.
Adhesives
Adhesives, sealants & coatings
Surface energy and adhesion failure, cure kinetics, bond-line control and durability under humidity, heat and load.
Composites
Composites & advanced structures
Resin infusion and cure, porosity, interlaminar strength, and joints where a composite has to meet a metal.
Engagement
How an engagement actually runs.
Four stages, each with a written output you can act on. If stage one shows the problem is not ours to solve, we tell you and stop there.
Stage 01
Technical intake
A 60-minute call with the engineers who will do the work. You bring the symptoms, the history and whatever data exists. We leave with a candidate mechanism list.
Stage 02
Scoped proposal
A written plan: the hypotheses to be tested, the analytical methods, the laboratories, the timeline and a fixed fee. Nothing starts until you sign it.
Stage 03
Investigation
Sample preparation, measurement, modelling. Weekly written updates — including the results that do not support the leading hypothesis.
Stage 04
Report & handover
Mechanism, evidence, recommended corrective action and the residual risk we could not close. Raw data included. A debrief with your team, not a slide deck.
140+
Technical investigations delivered across six manufacturing sectors
18 yrs
Median hands-on industry experience of the engineers on your project
92%
Of engagements close with a root cause the client's team could reproduce
£0
Charged before a written, fixed-fee scope is agreed and signed
“They spent the first week telling us which of our own theories were wrong. That was uncomfortable, and it was the most valuable week of the project.”
Insights
Notes from the laboratory.
Short technical pieces on the failure modes and methods we keep meeting. Written for engineers, not for search engines.
Why your adhesion test passes and your product still delaminates
Lap shear measures the wrong thing for most field failures. A short argument for peel, wedge and humidity-cycled testing instead.
Coin cells lie: what actually changes at pouch and pack scale
Electrolyte volume, stack pressure and thermal gradients are absent from coin-cell data — and they dominate cycle life.
Designing an analytical campaign that can actually falsify something
Most failure investigations collect data that is consistent with every hypothesis. Here is how to design one that discriminates.
Tell us what broke.
Send the symptoms and whatever data you have. A senior engineer reads every enquiry and replies within two working days — with a real technical opinion, or an honest referral elsewhere.