Smol­tek is devel­op­ing pro­cess tech­no­logy and con­cepts for applic­a­tions based on car­bon nan­o­tech­no­logy. Togeth­er with our pro­duc­tion part­ners, we are push­ing the lim­its of what is pos­sible in the semi­con­duct­or and hydro­gen industries. 

This is Smoltek

Smol­tek is devel­op­ing pro­cess tech­no­logy and con­cepts for applic­a­tions based on car­bon nan­o­tech­no­logy to solve advanced mater­i­als engin­eer­ing prob­lems. By pion­eer­ing car­bon nan­o­tech­no­logy, we are push­ing the lim­its of what is pos­sible in the semi­con­duct­or and hydro­gen industries.

Our primary focus is car­bon nan­ofibres (CNFs), which have excit­ing prop­er­ties. We have developed a tech­no­logy plat­form that may dis­rupt tech­nic­al solu­tions where today’s mater­i­als have reached their per­form­ance limit.

For example, we have developed a pro­to­type of the world’s smal­lest capa­cit­or and are in the midst of devel­op­ing a new cell mater­i­al with the ambi­tion to double (or even triple) the area effi­ciency of PEM (Pro­ton-exchange mem­brane) water-electrolyzers.

Carbon nanotechnology

Smoltek’s pat­ent-pro­tec­ted tech­no­logy plat­form enables con­trolled growth of pre­cisely loc­al­ized and defined nano­struc­tures, as indi­vidu­al fibers or clusters, in pre­defined pat­terns or films. This is done through cata­lyt­ic growth pro­cessing, with mater­i­als and pro­cess con­di­tions com­pat­ible with indus­tri­al requirements.

We devel­op tech­no­lo­gies to pro­duce car­bon nano­struc­tures hav­ing high pre­ci­sion and the desired prop­er­ties on any mater­i­al. This is our core tech­no­logy, and it goes by the name Smol­GROW™. Part­ners can license the core tech­no­logy to accom­plish solu­tions tailored to their unique needs and requirements.

Or, in col­lab­or­a­tion with industry part­ners, we devel­op unique applic­a­tions and products that offer a new solu­tions to mar­ket needs. Cur­rently, we are doing this in our tar­get indus­tries – semi­con­duct­ors and hydrogen.

A passion that never fades

We are sci­ent­ists and engin­eers with a pas­sion for nan­o­tech­no­logy. We are in the nev­er-end­ing search of how to enhance and fab­ric­ate car­bon nano­struc­tures with unique prop­er­ties in pre­defined pat­terns to enable bet­ter solu­tions with­in sev­er­al industries.

This does not mean that we lack a deep­er pur­pose for what we do. On the con­trary, we do what we do to enable dis­rupt­ive solu­tions in sev­er­al areas that are import­ant to human­ity – where con­ven­tion­al tech­no­logy is reach­ing its limits.

How it started

Smol­tek grew out of Dr. Shafiq Kabir’s research on man­u­fac­tur­ing meth­ods to, with great pre­ci­sion, con­trol the growth of car­bon nano­struc­tures with desired prop­er­ties on dif­fer­ent mater­i­als. Smoltek’s research and devel­op­ment team has since car­ried this research for­ward, made ground­break­ing innov­a­tions, and developed sev­er­al solu­tions for vari­ous applic­a­tion areas. This effort has res­ul­ted in 70 gran­ted pat­ents and a fur­ther 40+ pending pat­ents worldwide.

Pat­ents have both pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive con­nota­tions depend­ing on the per­spect­ive. For those who have inves­ted in innov­a­tion, a pat­ent on the inven­tion is pos­it­ive. It gives them the exclus­ive right to try to recoup their invest­ment for twenty years. Oth­ers may per­ceive the same pat­ent as some­thing neg­at­ive, as they, for a while, are not free to exploit the innov­a­tion as they wish. But on the whole, a pat­ent is a good thing; it incent­ives innov­at­ors to reveal everything about their innov­a­tions for the com­mon good in return for a rel­at­ively short peri­od of exclusivity.

For Smol­tek, the pat­ents are cru­cial because we don’t innov­ate for the sake of devel­op­ing our products, but to offer the tech­no­logy and know-how to com­pan­ies strug­gling with mater­i­al engin­eer­ing lim­it­a­tions. Without pat­ents, we would have no way of recoup­ing our sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ments in research and devel­op­ment of new mater­i­als tech­no­lo­gies and pay­ing dividends to those who made those invest­ments pos­sible in the first place (our shareholders).

Our know-how and pat­ents form the intel­lec­tu­al cap­it­al upon which our busi­ness mod­el is built.

Vision

We aim to be a glob­ally lead­ing tech­no­logy devel­op­ment part­ner and sup­pli­er of revo­lu­tion­iz­ing solu­tions for advanced mater­i­als engin­eer­ing chal­lenges with­in indus­tries where the need for new dis­rupt­ive tech­no­lo­gies is sought for. 

Mission

We devel­op nano­struc­ture fab­ric­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies that solve advanced mater­i­als engin­eer­ing prob­lems. This enables man­u­fac­tur­ing smal­ler and bet­ter micro­elec­tron­ic com­pon­ents and dis­rupt­ive mater­i­als solu­tions to meet today’s and tomorrow’s mater­i­als engin­eer­ing challenges.