Patented research spurred out of Carnegie Mellon University years ago involving carbon nanotubes is set to receive a commercial debut in the near future following a significant investment from a serial entrepreneur.
Mohammad F. Islam, a professor in the department of materials science and engineering at CMU, will work with Trey Watson as the two co-founders of the newly formed Watson Nano, the basis of which comes from research led by Islam that has resulted in a durable product that is lightweight and cheaper to produce than similar alternatives. Watson will license the technology and hopes to scale it commercially soon.
"What we did is we started using carbon nanotubes, which you could think of just like a carbon fiber but significantly smaller," Islam said. "It's the nanometer versus a micrometer or hundreds of nanometers kind-of-length-of-scale. Then we mixed it with the polymer within a specific approach — which is very similar to things that we do in everyday construction — and then we can create a composite that has comparable modules to some lightweight metal, for example, aluminum."
Islam said the technology won't be used in heavy industrial applications such as bridge building but noted that its benefits will likely be better seen in the manufacturing of components like those found in cars, which require parts that are lightweight but also immensely strong. He said these carbon nanotubes can lead to products that meet these requirements while also adhering to intense safety standards. Other use cases involve electrical connectivity or electrostatic dissipation to protect transformers, among others.
Islam said that in contrast to metals, these carbon nanotubes aren't going to rust and can be formed into nearly any type of shape.
"There are many areas that we can envision using these materials," Islam said.
For Watson, who primarily focuses on funding early-stage technology via his private equity- and venture capital-style firm Watson Industries, it's those possibilities that have him most excited about scaling the technology in the future. Watson declined to disclose how much he invested specifically to license the technology but said it was more than $1.5 million.
"The reason why I chose to invest in it is [because] it's a platform technology, I mean there are so many applications," Watson said. "Aerospace, defense, health care, automotive, building materials — I mean the list goes on and on and on of the opportunities that can be explored and capitalized on with it. The more I dug, the more I asked … it was just a sound investment."
Funding will also be used to create laboratory space in Pittsburgh and in Watson's current home of Birmingham, Alabama. Those laboratories will then allow for the carbon nanotubes to be produced at a scale that could support commercial interests.
Watson said the company will employ 15 workers "out of the gate" across the two labs with the intent to double or triple those figures in the next 12 to 18 months.
"It's done, it's developed, it's built; now we need to go find applications and customers," Watson said.
