Monday, March 3, 2008

N.H.'s NanoComp rolls out long, thin nanotube 'cloth'

By Efrain Viscarolasaga

For all their pomp and promise, carbon nanotubes have proven difficult to manufacture in a form factor useful for large-scale industrial use. Last week, small New Hampshire company Nanocomp Technologies Inc. took what it calls the first step in mass-producing carbon nanotubes into fabrics -- spinning what starts as a powder into a usable textile.

Using its new process, Nanocomp of Concord produced an ultra-thin sheet measuring 3 feet by 6 feet and has since been able to reproduce the process daily.

Executives say the breakthrough could open a host of new applications and put Nanocomp on an aggressive growth path over the next two years.

Nanocomp, which has won a bevy of local industry awards, has been working on long carbon nanotubes since it launched from Lebanon, N.H., technology incubator Synergy Innovations Inc. in 2004. Nanocomp was first able to produce a small sample of a carbon-nanotube fabric last spring, and now it has moved on to producing large swaths on a daily basis, which customers are examining for real-world applications, said co-founder and CEO Peter Antoinette.

Cost, uses remain a challenge

Michael Gurau, president of CEI Community Ventures, the lead investor in Nanocomp's 2006 Series A financing, called the successful production a milestone for the company and the industry.

Nanocomp has secured patents and keeps trade secrets on both the production of its long carbon nanotubes and the process by which it turns it into sheets. Executives hope that once the product can be manufactured in bulk, the 20-person company could be hiring as many as 200 people in the next two years.

"The challenge for any technology in advanced science is, No. 1, to not just be a science experiment and to make a product that can realistically be put in people's hands," Antoinette said.

Cost is also a challenge, said Antoinette, but executives are confident they can make the process cheaper. The sheets they are making now cost about $1,000, but given time and economy of scale, they hope to get the number to less than a dollar per sheet.

The original funding for Nanocomp's research came from a $2 million contract with the U.S. Army's Natick Soldier Systems Center, which is looking for advanced materials for body armor and other applications. The company is also funded by seed-stage investors including CEI Community Ventures of Portland, Maine. Nanocomp is also in the middle of raising $6 million in a second round of funding it hopes to close this spring.

Keeping powder dry

Carbon nanotubes, long or short, hold unique properties, which include very low weight, high heat and electric conductivity, high strength and a natural resistance to electromagnetic interference.

Mike Foley, CEO of short-nanotube distributor Cheap Tubes Inc. in Brattleboro, Vt., said he wasn't aware of any other companies able to create nanotube fabrics as large as what Nanocomp boasts, but he also said he hadn't been familiar with Nanocomp.

Foley added that while powder-based nanotubes will continue to have applications, the sheet form could have environmental benefits, because individual tubes do not escape into the environment, which could alleviate the safety concerns raised by industry watchdogs and legislators.

Applications for the nanotube fabric sheets range from satellites to airplanes to consumer electronics to sporting goods, said Nanocomp vice president of engineering Mark Banash. But getting into those markets would be a gradual process.

"We had to make it easy to understand for industrial use," he said. "Nanotechnology is revolutionary, but the industries these products are going into are evolutionary."