Embracing the weather with SecEm

Wellington is famous for its compactness, its sensory qualities and most importantly, its film industry. Unfortunately also for its sadistic southerlies and remorseless rain. Luckily Wellington based chemical research lab SecEm has developed a chemical that challenges Wellington’s extremes.

Lead engineer Liam Rouetly says the chemical is completely revolutionary and could potentially have thousands of applications outside of its own intended use. The chemical known currently as polymer 2060 has amazing absorbent properties and is originally intended as what Rouetly describes simply as a “skin umbrella”.

“Polymer 2060 is fantastic for its intended use and other potential usages. The polymer is genetically designed to absorb water and harden, while continuing to absorb water.” Rouetly explains. “In addition to absorbing and holding water, as 2060 hardens it gains the ability to reflect and absorb potential RF emissions. Protecting any surface from becoming wet, or being penetrated by radio waves. We are currently working on evolving the polymer to insulate, which would have tremendous potential for the drastically improving the quality of homes”.

“Wellington weather is extreme,” Rouetly admits “its amazing in summer and horrific in winter. Have you ever walked down Featherston St on a wet, windy day and observed all the dead umbrellas littered in bins and gutters? That was our motivation to develop 2060, we wanted to come up with a solution where Wellingtonian’s would never need an umbrella again”.

Routely describes Polymer 2060 as “breathtaking”. Simply one drop of 2060 in liquid form can absorb enough water to create a shell for the entire upper body of a average sized male.

Liam Rouetly and Greg Barnett founded SecEm in 2038. Both Barnett and Rouetly graduated from Victoria University with Masters in Biochemical Product Engineering in 2033. After travelling together, they decided to settle in Wellington. “We love Wellington, there is just something about this place. We both wanted to give something back to our home”.

Wellington’s international reputation has grown significantly since gaining the “Sensory City of the Year” title. However the development of Polymer 2060 has rocketed Wellingtons reputation into space; rumors have surfaced that NASA had expressed interest in Polymer 2060.

“We are very excited about the potential of Polymer 2060. There are a lot of important people excited about Polymer 2060” SecEm’s spokesperson announced.

Liam Rouetly explained that there is a large amount of secrecy surrounding the polymer. “Everything is happening fast, we are getting hundreds of holographic calls weekly its really great”.