Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), manufactured by NoPo in Bengaluru, have a wide range of applications, from making batteries for electric vehicles, where the material can improve energy density, to semiconductor design.
The company is developing single chiral SWCNTs that provide tight bandgap control in electronic applications. The material has the potential to become part of advanced semiconductor designs, the company’s co-founders Arunima Patel and Gadhadar Reddy told ET.
With the latest funding of $3 million from Micelio Funds and Inflexor Ventures Axilor Ventures, NoPo plans to open a factory in Bengaluru or nearby Hosur that will serve global battery manufacturers (whose demand is expressed in thousands of tons per year) and will further expand its offerings for customers from the electronics and semiconductor industries.
Currently, the company’s pilot unit is located in Electronics City, Bengaluru and can only provide evaluation materials.
“This material is useful in semiconductors and EV batteries. We counted that scientists around the world have developed over 120 uses for this material. Its strength is one of its unique properties,” Patel said.
Patel claimed that NoPo is the only company in India that has figured out how to make this material. “There are no more than six or seven players in the world who know how to produce this material,” she said. He competes with players from Russia, Korea and China. The company’s partner includes the Russian company Ocsial, an industrial manufacturer of single-wall carbon nanotubes.
“We have been supplying this material mainly to semiconductor manufacturers for five or six years. “The client is one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world, which is using this material to develop a novel generation of chips that will be in the quantum computing zone,” she said, adding that a confidentiality agreement prohibits her from revealing her name.
“They’re trying to reduce the bandgap and make smaller chips that go into smaller electronics and enable faster processors,” Patel said.
If a company is working on a silicon battery with high energy density, such as Tesla’s, then the material becomes an integral part of the battery, she added.
Silicon can crack during charging and discharging, making the batteries unstable. “This is where our product comes into play. Single-wall carbon nanotubes make batteries perform much more stably, she said.
The company currently provides evaluation materials to global original equipment manufacturers. “The largest battery supplier in the world is currently evaluating our material,” she said.
“With this round of financing, we will be able to serve customers around the world,” she said.
While the company is working with three electric vehicle battery customers in India, on the semiconductor front, any design firm that plans to produce smaller nodes and is considering in-house manufacturing is a potential customer, she said.
The company currently works with one chip company in Taiwan and another in Japan. It started operations in 2011 and currently employs 30 employees.
