For rugby players, footballers, snowboarders and many other sportsmen life has just got a lot less painful – and it's all thanks to inventor Richard Palmer.

The Hove-based designer has been hailed as one of the most important innovators in sport after creating a "magic material" called d3o.

The goo-like substance turns temporarily hard on impact, turning the seemingly soft items it is contained within into strong protective layers for whoever is wearing them.

It means comfortable hats can become life-saving crash helmets, goalkeepers' gloves can reduce the sting of fast flying footballs and rugby body-armour can give players protection against tackles from 18st opponents.

Now what started out as a labour of love for Mr Palmer, who wanted to make his own snowboarding trips less painful, has become a fast-growing industry, with demand from dozens of major sports brands.

He came up with the material by experimenting with existing “shear thickening fluids”, toying with them in a Sussex laboratory until he found a way to contain and shape them into a usable form.

His 17-strong company, based in Hove Park Villas, has now supplied the US and Canadian Winter Olympic teams as well as companies including Berghaus, Quiksilver, Burton snowboards, Schoffel, Spyder, Head and Caterpillar. It is estimated to have prevented or reduced the severity of injuries for hundreds of people each year.

It has supplied d3o to be used in protective cases for iPods and has now even been approached to design elbow pads for the military.

Mr Palmer, from Brighton, said he wanted it to become the "intelligent shock-absorption" equivalent of Gore-Tex, the breathable waterproof material used for many outdoors clothing products.

He said: "There is more scope for how to use it than we can keep up with at the moment. We keep coming up with ideas and having to then say to ourselves we need to concentrate on what we've already got in production."

The rise of the company's fortunes could be a boost for Brighton and Hove as well.

Despite much of the demand coming from the US and now growing in China and Japan, Mr Palmer is keen to keep d3o based in the city.

He said: "People like working here, it's a good place to live, they can cycle to work and it’s near enough to Gatwick for us to travel when we need to."