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I www.vincentcaprio.org have just returned from Denver at our 3rd annual Nano Renewable Energy Summit www.nanoenergysummit.org. I would like to share a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MORetnfixQ of the conference.

In this month’s interview, we talk to Ajay P. Malshe. He is the Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of NanoMech LLC ( http://www.nanomech.biz). NanoMech LLC is a nanotechnology innovations platform company with major current nanomanufacturing and product foci in four application sectors. These sectors are Machining (ex. TuffTek®) and Lubrication (NanoGlideTM), Sustainable Retail Packaging (Guard-In-FreshTM), Biomedical and Defense. NanoMech is creating world class innovations and innovations based hi-tech job opportunities in Arkansas and US, at large. Ajay has received thirty one awards and recognitions for research, education and service achievements (1996-2010). The most recent prestigious recognitions, Frost & Sullivan 2005 Technology Excellence Award and 2006 Top 25 Micro and Nano Innovations from R&D Magazine and Micro/Nano Newsletter are due to his team’s innovative contributions in the area of cBN-TiN nanocomposite coating and other related products. He is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) and a Fellow of Institute of Physics, London, UK and is listed in Lexinton’s Who’s Who and Marquis Who’s Who America.

Ajay is also 21st Century Endowed Chair Professor of Materials, Manufacturing Processes and Integrated Systems at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and adjunct-faculty of Micro Electronics and Photonics Graduate Program at the University of Arkansas. He is the Director of the Materials and Manufacturing Research Laboratories (MMRL; a cluster of 5 laboratories). Malshe has multidisciplinary research programs in the fields of nanomanufacturing, IC, MEMS and micro and nano device packaging and integration, and surface engineering for advanced machining. He has authored over 200 plus peer reviewed publications, 10 books / chapters, and holds 9 patents (4 licensed to industries). He has graduated over multiple graduate students, trained numerous post-doctoral fellows, and provided research experience to several undergraduate and high school students and school teachers. He has an extensive track record of global collaborations with academic institutions and companies. He is a member of professional societies such as ASME, SME, IEEE, MRS, ASEE and IMAPS.

In this interview, we talk to Ajay about NanoMech and his vision for nanotech in the decade ahead. We hope you enjoy it. – Steve Waite

SW: Great to speak with you today, Ajay. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us. How are things coming along at NanoMech?

AM: It is a very exciting time and we are very busy. We are building and strengthening the company through investments in people, ideas and tools, in that order, to create a truly world-class enterprise. What that means is that we are bringing on new talent, from a world-class executive team including our recent hiring of Keith Blakely as CEO to eager and skilled young engineers, manufacturing, and administrative staff, all of whom are focused on our corporate mission of bringing truly innovative and exciting technologies into the commercial marketplace. Not a week goes by that we aren’t involved with major industrial customers and partners to create high value nano-enabled product solutions. As importantly, we are excited and having fun making the transition from an R&D company to a profitable high tech commercial enterprise.

SW: NanoMech’s business strategy is based on a concept you refer to as the Innovation Pipeline. Tell us about the concept and how it guides the company.

AM: The idea of Innovation Pipeline is perhaps a bit more than the words describe. We aren’t just talking about a linear sequence of taking ideas from a laboratory setting to a feasibility stage and then further refining them to achieve alpha, beta, and finally commercial products. Instead, our “pipeline” is perhaps better thought of as a matrix; a combination of vertical and horizontal parallels fed by exciting work being done in academic and laboratory settings by students and postdocs (like multiple springs of water feeding into a lake to keep the freshness of water that provides life to marine animals and plants) and then examined and applied across a range of important markets by our engineering and business teams. We have found that in this way, we can work on innovations that may have a runway of two to four years from idea (”lightning in the bottle”) to a commercialized product (”light bulb”) while simultaneously investing in and establishing important and protectable technology platforms for broad market applications, addressing global problems. It is critical that we then align the developments and commercialization road maps of these innovations using strong interactions with customers and partners to ensure that we deliver what the market needs and in a timeline and at economics that are appropriate. This allows us to stay both properly focused and at the same time, continuously deliver new innovations and products. With this approach, we believe NanoMech will achieve great results in the near-term and remain strong in the years to come.

SW: NanoMech has four areas of focus in terms of business activity: Machining/Coatings, Lubrication, BioMedical/Defense technologies and Retail Packaging. Give us some perspective on NanoMech’s Machining technology and business opportunities you are seeing in the market today.

AM: Manufacturing is, in my opinion, core to the success of any country and a major driver and source of innovation. One of the central processes in most manufacturing – either directly or indirectly – is machining. Current technologies are making materials strong and durable and demanding higher productivity but with increased consciousness on environmental safety and energy efficiency. We achieved a breakthrough innovation at NanoMech in what we refer to as our TuffTek® coating for cutting tools to machine steels and other related alloys. Steel and related alloys are at the heart of uncounted application areas spanning from heavy earth movers to equipment used in oil and gas exploration and production to automotive and aerospace industries – just to name a few! The most efficient machining of hardened steel is best accomplished using a man-made material called cubic boron nitride (cBN). TuffTek® is world’s first cBN composite coating that has been successfully applied to a wide range of cutting tool insert geometries. This came out of my academic research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. The product is manufactured using a patented platform technology that we believe will be disruptive in the area of nanomaterial coatings. Being the first with successful cBN coating in the market is a competitive advantage. We are finding great interest from major customers (and competitors) looking to take advantage of the performance and economic benefits that TuffTek can provide. Our hope is that the TuffTek innovation can be rapidly assimilated in a traditionally conservative cutting tool market and NanoMech is forging a broad range of partnerships and commercial arrangements to make this happen. In the pipeline of TuffTek innovations we have aligned a series of products based on new chemistries for coating, designs of tools and other parameters. But again we are balancing the act of laser focusing and keeping an eye on the future, to make sure revenue is king!

SW: What kind of research and commercial activities do you see in the Lubricants business for NanoMech?

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