The wizard of Smoltek

Smoltek has made a major break­through: suc­cess­ful­ly grow­ing car­bon nanofibers (CNF) on an A4-sized area. This achieve­ment, detailed in our lat­est news and press release, under­scores the sig­nif­i­cant val­ue of Smoltek’s intel­lec­tu­al cap­i­tal. As a share­hold­er or investor, it’s cru­cial to under­stand this val­ue and how we pro­tect it. This arti­cle explores what we have achieved, our strat­e­gy for mon­e­tiz­ing it, the impor­tance of our peo­ple, and how we are com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing the intel­lec­tu­al cap­i­tal they represent.

Revolution in CNF production

Almost two decades ago, Dr. Shafiq Kabir, founder of Smoltek, bought a used plas­ma-enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (PECVD) reac­tor cham­ber from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy. It was need­ed for grow­ing car­bon nanofibers. The reac­tor cham­ber was the company’s first, affec­tion­ate­ly known inter­nal­ly as “David.” Among the nerdier share­hold­ers and investors, it’s known as the 6‑inch machine because it was used to grow car­bon nanofibers on 6‑inch sil­i­con wafers. It still can, but now “David” has been rebuilt to grow car­bon nanofibers on a tita­ni­um sub­strate slight­ly larg­er than an A4 sheet (21×29.7 cm).

“With recent mod­i­fi­ca­tions, ‘David’ can now pro­duce cell mate­ri­als up to A4 size, a stan­dard for indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen. “This allows us to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­duce up to 150 pro­to­types of 2×2 cm, or 24 pro­to­types of 5×5 cm, or a sin­gle pro­to­type at A4 size.”

With a fur­ther mod­i­fi­ca­tion planned, Smoltek will be able to pro­duce up to 2,000 square meters of cell mate­r­i­al per year.

Demand is already knocking

Why would Smoltek pro­duce 2,000 m² of cell mate­r­i­al per year? There are no cus­tomers, after all.

Quite the opposite!

“In fact, cus­tomers are already knock­ing on our door,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, says. “While they may not order large quan­ti­ties of cell mate­r­i­al on day one, they rely on our cell mate­r­i­al and exper­tise to devel­op their products.”

The devel­op­ment process, which typ­i­cal­ly spans 2–5 years, begins with pro­to­types that require cell mate­ri­als in sizes of 2×2 cm and 5×5 cm. From there, they move to A4-sized cell mate­r­i­al for build­ing entire stacks, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to sub­stan­tial orders for full-scale production.

At each stage—from ini­tial pro­to­types to stacks and pre-series production—Smoltek gen­er­ates rev­enue by sup­ply­ing both the essen­tial cell mate­ri­als and the R&D ser­vices that enable cus­tomers’ devel­op­ment efforts. By the time these cus­tomers are ready for mass pro­duc­tion, a vol­ume fac­to­ry will be capa­ble of pro­duc­ing up to 200,000 m² of cell mate­r­i­al per year, includ­ing sizes larg­er than 1 m².

One part­ner com­pa­ny exclaimed in amaze­ment: ‘Is it true?!’

Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen

The genius behind the breakthrough

To achieve A4-sized cell mate­r­i­al pro­duc­tion, Shafiq Kabir and oth­ers at Smoltek Hydro­gen redesigned “David.” Among oth­er things, the reac­tor cham­ber was giv­en a larg­er top elec­trode and a larg­er heat­ing plate. It sounds sim­ple. But it is any­thing but.

“Shafiq is a wiz­ard,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg. “No one out­side Smoltek thought it pos­si­ble to grow car­bon nanofibers on a sur­face as large as A4. But with his unique exper­tise and sys­tem­at­ic approach, Shafiq took on this seem­ing­ly impos­si­ble task and proved the naysay­ers wrong.”

Elli­nor Ehrn­berg continues:

“Since we pub­lished the news of our break­through, the result has attract­ed much atten­tion from researchers and col­leagues world­wide. One part­ner com­pa­ny exclaimed in amaze­ment: ‘Is it true?!’ They were stunned by the result. It shows that Smoltek has a unique posi­tion in the market.”

Safeguarding our intellectual capital

Smoltek’s unique posi­tion stems from our high­ly qual­i­fied research and devel­op­ment and the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty it gen­er­ates. This exper­tise has solid­i­fied Smoltek’s posi­tion with its largest and longest stand­ing investor as a com­pa­ny with sig­nif­i­cant, but not ful­ly rec­og­nized, poten­tial.

To pro­tect this intel­lec­tu­al cap­i­tal, Smoltek takes every pos­si­ble mea­sure, includ­ing secur­ing exclu­sive rights to use the results of our R&D through patents. But even more cru­cial is Smoltek Hydrogen’s com­mit­ment to nur­tur­ing the team behind these remark­able achieve­ments, ensur­ing they thrive and grow while mak­ing Smoltek an attrac­tive employ­er that draws top tal­ent worldwide.

Cultivating a winning team

Elli­nor cred­its much of the company’s unique cul­ture to the sup­port­ive and open-mind­ed lead­er­ship of Shafiq Kabir and Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D.

“Fabi­an and Shafiq cre­ate an atmos­phere where every­one feels val­ued,” Elli­nor explains. “They are gen­er­ous with their knowl­edge and always approach­able, encour­ag­ing open dis­cus­sion and col­lab­o­ra­tion. Their pos­i­tive, inclu­sive approach brings out the best in every­one on the team.”

From the begin­ning, Smoltek Hydro­gen’s co-founders, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg and Fabi­an Wenger, have been com­mit­ted to build­ing a safe and col­lab­o­ra­tive cul­ture. No ques­tion is too triv­ial to ask and no idea is too out­landish to sug­gest. They believe in cre­at­ing an open, wel­com­ing envi­ron­ment where every employ­ee feels safe, val­ued and appreciated.

This cul­ture pays off through loy­al employ­ees who go the extra mile for the com­pa­ny and each oth­er. A small but telling exam­ple is when the team framed the first A4-sized cell mate­r­i­al and hung it in the office.