TextureJet has secured a £130,000 Innovate UK grant to advance ArcSlice, its surface preparation technology for polymer and composite materials. The nine-month programme will fund development, testing and customer evaluation as the Derbyshire manufacturer works to improve process consistency, reduce waste and move the technology closer to wider industrial use.
The award comes through Innovate UK’s Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chains: Potential High Growth SMEs competition. ArcSlice addresses a different materials problem from TextureJet’s established electrochemical jet machining systems, which process conductive metals. The newer process is intended to prepare non-conductive surfaces such as carbon fibre reinforced polymer before bonding or coating.
Surface preparation can determine whether a bonded composite joint performs as designed. The process has to remove contamination and create the required surface condition without damaging fibres, introducing unwanted residues or producing excessive variation between parts. A method that works on laboratory coupons also has to remain repeatable across larger components, more complicated geometries and real production cycle times.
TextureJet has previously demonstrated ArcSlice in a robotised prototype cell and compared the process with peel ply and media blasting, two established approaches to preparing composite surfaces before adhesive bonding. The current Innovate UK project is intended to extend that development through further testing and customer evaluation rather than treating the earlier prototype as a finished production system.
Automation is an important part of the proposition. A programmed process can apply a defined treatment to selected areas of a component, reducing dependence on manual preparation and helping manufacturers reproduce the same surface condition from part to part. That becomes especially relevant where bonding performance has to be validated across long production runs or where the surface is difficult for an operator to prepare consistently.
ArcSlice also expands TextureJet beyond the conductive materials addressed by its established STAT platform. The company’s electrochemical jet machining process uses a localised electrolyte jet to remove material selectively from metal surfaces, allowing users to roughen, polish, pattern, deburr or prepare defined areas without mechanical contact. Because the treatment is localised, full-part masking can be reduced or avoided for some applications.
The composite process follows the same broader idea of treating only the area required, but the underlying materials challenge is different. Polymer matrix composites do not conduct electricity in the way required for electrochemical machining, while their surfaces can be sensitive to heat, abrasion and contamination. Developing a separate treatment route therefore allows TextureJet to address a class of components that sits outside the normal operating range of its metal processing equipment.
The industrial case extends beyond aerospace, although aerospace development has provided an important proving ground. Composite structures are also used in transport, energy and other high value manufacturing sectors where weight, stiffness and corrosion resistance justify the additional material and process complexity. Mixed material assemblies increasingly combine composites with metals, making reliable bonding and coating preparation part of a larger joining problem.
Adhesive bonding can reduce the need to drill fibres or add mechanical fasteners, but it places greater responsibility on surface condition, process monitoring and quality assurance. A preparation method that reduces operator variation can therefore affect both joint performance and the amount of inspection or rework required later in production. The benefit has to be demonstrated through repeatability and throughput rather than assumed from the treatment mechanism alone.
Waste reduction is another stated objective of the funded project. Conventional preparation can consume masking materials, abrasive media or sacrificial peel ply, while contaminated consumables have to be removed from the process afterwards. A more selective treatment may reduce some of that material use, although the total production cost will still depend on equipment utilisation, cycle time, consumables, maintenance and integration with existing automation.
The grant arrives during a period of physical expansion for TextureJet. The company moved to larger premises in Ripley earlier in 2026 as it increased capacity for its surface engineering systems and pursued further international growth. That gives ArcSlice a manufacturing base in which prototype development can be considered alongside the practical requirements of building, integrating and supporting equipment for customers.
The nine-month programme now has to produce evidence around repeatability, throughput and customer integration. Composite surface preparation is a narrow production step, but failures at that stage can compromise an otherwise expensive component or bonded assembly. If ArcSlice can reproduce its earlier technical results under customer conditions while reducing masking, waste and manual intervention, the project will have a clearer route from funded development into a repeatable industrial process.
