Entrepreneurial Dominion

Jennifer Lalli, Metal Rubber inventor

Bend Me, Shape Me,

Any Way you Want Me

NanoSonic has introduced Metal Rubber, its first nano-tech product with broad commercial potential. Look for more awesome materials to come out of the Blacksburg lab. 

A drawback of having “nano” in the name of your company, Jennifer Lalli of NanoSonic, Inc., discovered not long ago, is that you have to beat away would-be investors with a stick. All it took was an article in Popular Science magazine about the company’s new Metal Rubber product -- a square-foot tile of shimmering electricity-conducting material that can be bent, twisted, stomped upon and stretched to several times its normal size before snapping back to its original shape – and the phone calls started pouring in.

“We’ve been getting five to 10 calls a day from people wondering if we had stock [in the company] to sell,” says Lalli, vice president for business development.

Talk about a leap of faith. NanoSonic has some ideas of how electronics manufacturers, defense contractors and others might use Metal Rubber, but no one knows yet if they’re workable. Requests for samples have been pouring in but the Blacksburg company can’t produce the nano-flubber fast enough in its cramped lab space to meet demand: only four square feet daily of half inch-thick film. “Every day,” says President Rick Claus, “I type a dozen notes to people apologizing that our capacity is not high enough, we’ll put you on a waiting list.”

Even so, the wanna-be investors may be on to something: It’s an exciting time for the six-year-old firm. After surviving mainly on government- and corporate-funded research contracts, NanoSonic has developed an indisputably cool product with apparent money-making potential. Plus, there’s a lot more where Rubber Metal came from. The bedrock technology, known as electrostatic self-assembly, allows NanoSonic to custom-design new materials that exhibit desired properties such as elasticity, rigidity, electrical and thermal conductivity.

Other researchers can do much the same in their own labs. But two things set NanoSonic apart. First, its nano-coating is tough – it won’t rub off. Second, the company has technologies that can vault its production capacity beyond the microscope-slide scale to a manufacturing process capable of churning out film at the rate of anticipated 30 feet per minute. Claus provides this analogy: “Instead of making bread a loaf at a time, it’s like making 50,000 loaves of bread at the same time.”

NanoSonic grew out of research at Virginia Tech, where Claus is a professor of electrical engineering and director of   The Fiber and Electro Optics Research Center. Founded 18 years ago, the Center has spun off 21 tech companies, many of which are still around today. Claus, who was granted the Outstanding Scientist of Virginia award in 2001, came across the electrostatic self-assembly process while working on ways to add coatings to his fiber-optic cables. He soon realized that the process offered the prospect of even greater technological breakthroughs than his fiber optics work.

Electrostatic self-assembly uses a polymer foundation that possesses a uniform, positive electric charge on the surface. The substrate is dipped into water mixed with molecules possessing a negative electric charge. In a process that Claus describes as "molecular Velcro," the negatively charged molecules then bond to the substrate. The process is repeated hundreds of times, alternating between positive and electric charges. The properties of the film vary depending on the selection of polymers and molecules employed.

Early on, NanoSonic created thin films with special characteristics such as resistance to abrasion or static. But researchers found that the coatings would wipe off. The material just didn’t stand up to abuse, says Lalli, who doubles as nanocomposites group leader for the company. Re-thinking the electrostatic self-assembly process, NanoSonic devised proprietary techniques to strengthen the bonding. Says she: “We’ve developed a new way of making a nano-deposit.”

One product of Lalli's group, Metal Rubber, is a remarkably durable material. For all of its remarkable properties, however, Claus cautions against hype. Metal Rubber remains a product in search of a market. He’s the first to admit that he doesn’t know who, if anyone, will be willing to pay money for it. “We’re making stuff and shipping it to people. They’re in the cool-what-do-we-do-with-it phase. They’ve never seen this before. They’re figuring out what to do with it. Their engineers aren’t used to working with this kind of material. It will take time to gain acceptance.”

That said, the interest in Metal Rubber is highly encouraging. Claus sees a number of avenues worth exploring.

One potential application is in electronics. His film, which is mechanically flexible and electronically conductive, could be used to create “flex circuits.” Or flexible displays. Or wearable electronics.

Other potential uses could come out of the biomedical field. Perhaps Rubber Metal could be integrated into artificial limbs, embedded with electrical sensors and actuators so they function like muscles. Perhaps the pliable material could replace inflexible metal stents used to prop open arteries in angioplasty.

Speculating about the aerospace applications, Claus conjures the potential for fabricating flexible, shape-shifting wings. It’s too early to say which of these mind-bending scenarios might prove feasible. His strategy right now is simply to supply raw material to reputable companies expressing interest in testing it.

Major corporations players are taking NanoSonic's innovations seriously. Claus recently announced a multi-year deal with Lockheed Martin, the giant defense contractor whose skunkworks are continually pushing the envelope of aerospace technologies. He’s also collaborating with “a couple other defense companies” – including an unnamed shipbuilder in Newport News, hint, hint, wink, wink – some major electronics companies, biomedical and medical-device manufacturers, and a couple of large chemical companies.

NanoSonic's immediate challenge is ramping up production. Having outgrown its Blacksburg lab, the company can’t meet the surging demand for Metal Rubber. “We’re limited by the building we’re in,” says Claus. “The height of the building is a limiting factor. We physically cannot build materials larger than two foot square.” He’s begun scouting locations, in Virginia and in other states, to build a larger manufacturing facility.

In his interview, Claus sounds like a man who’s still figuring out the economics of plant location. He’s been pleasantly surprised by the positive reception he’s gotten from economic developers, who touted the tax benefits of locating in enterprise zones. But the decisive asset, he notes, probably will be a pool of workers with the specialized skills to operate the plant.

Longer term, Claus has to decide what kind of company NanoSonic should be when it grows up. Currently, 50 employees are organized in four groups: the nanocomposites group, which developed the Metal Rubber; a closely related advanced polymers group; and a non-chemistry group engaged in electrical engineering and radio-frequency work; and an administrative staff.

If Rubber Metal turns out to be a hit, does Claus want to morph his research-focused organization into one that manufactures and delivers product, develops sales channels, serves customers and handles all the administrative overhead associated with those activities? Does Claus, a world-class scientist, have the business skills to run a large organization, and if not, would he be willing to bring someone else on board?

Alternatively, should NanoSonic retain its R&D focus, generating revenue through licenses and royalties? It won’t get as big that way, and it could leave potential profit on the table.

Claus doesn’t yet have the answers. Fortunately, he’s not under any pressure to make a decision. He has no outside investors to answer to -- 100 percent of the financing has come from government and corporate contracts. Furthermore, NanoSonic has begun diversifying its revenue stream by selling products, ranging from carbon nanotubes and gold nanoclusters to ionic polymer sensors, for experimental use. Product sales generate some five to 10 percent of revenues now. Having seen what’s happened to others who took on outside investors and grew too fast, Claus says, he’s been content to grow conservatively.

So, the bad news for you would-be investors, is that, no, NanoSonic isn’t selling any stock and it isn’t looking for investors…. At least, not now. But who knows what the future might hold? Claus hints at other novel materials, even cooler than Rubber Metal, to come out of his lab. Dramatic announcements, he promises, are forthcoming.

-- August 18, 2004

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