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Banking on Wal-Mart?NanoStatics spinning tech tale in Pickaway County
Far from the lights of Columbus where technology is being pushed as the new frontier for jobs and the economy, Ashley Scott and John Robertson have high-tech ideas and low-tech ambitions.
The pair are on the leading edge of a little-studied field called electrospinning, and last year formed NanoStatics LLC in the garage of InfoSight Corp., a Chillicothe-based maker of industrial tagging and marking machines that Robertson started in 1993.
Electrospinning, which sounds more like a daredevil's stunt than a technology with commercial potential, creates specialized nanofibers - 100 to 1,000 times smaller than textile fibers - by pushing a liquid solution or polymer through an electrical field. The end product has applications for industries from paper manufacturing to aerospace, but Scott and Robertson are keeping their feet on the ground.
"We'd prefer to provide the tools rather than the research," Robertson said. "We don't want to limit our options. We want to enable others to use the tools for whatever they want."
The tools they hope to manufacture through NanoStatics will create the fibers. What is drawing the interest of researchers and companies from as far away as Germany is a matrix of 400 small nozzles on a 10.5-inch head - the most nozzles in the smallest space that's been designed.
Scott said previously patented designs have had more nozzles, but are on a much larger head and are impractical for commercial use, which is the goal for NanoStatics.
Their machine can produce 20 times the fiber of any previously documented device, he said.
A publication by the Army's Natick (Mass.) Research & Development Center, said here have been 50 patents in the field of electrospinning in the last 60 years, but none has resulted in a commercial product. Scott said the first U.S. patent pertaining to electrospinning was granted in the 1930s, but research in the field slowed considerably until 1993, when a professor at the University of Akron revived interest in the field.
Myriad uses
Robertson said electrospun fiber has a number of properties with commercial applications.
The durable material could be used to make stronger paper and fabrics, for example. It is highly absorbent, creating possible use in making wipes, diapers and bandages, yet also has a high pore volume, which gives it filtration uses. Other practical uses would be window and door screens that allow air in, but keep water out, or waterproof clothing.
There are higher tech uses as well, Scott said, with aerospace and military applications, biomedical use and solar and fuel cell possibilities.
"I've made a living by being involved in solving industrial problems," Robertson said. "It's not as pizzazzy as the 'Net revolution or new software, but this has the potential of being a big business."
The long-term goal is to supply the equipment but, in the meantime, NanoStatics will continue its research and development and do a limited amount of contract manufacturing to fund the company.
