TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW

Canatu's patent pending innovations are in new carbon nanomaterials (NanoBuds™), new production methods for synthesis of Nanotubes and NanoBuds™, new component manufacturing methods for high aspect ratio molecular structures such as Nanotubes and NanoBuds™ and for nanotube and NanoBud™-based energy, electrical and optical components.

To date, the biggest bottlenecks for Nanotube commercialization have been that:

  1. Volume production exists only for very low quality bulk Nanotubes having a wide range of crystal structures and many impurities
  2. The preparation of raw Nanotubes for use in applications includes many expensive and time consuming process steps which degrade the product quality
  3. Electrical conductivity and other qualities of Nanotubes are not well controlled
  4. Positioning and patterning of Nanotubes is only possible at high temperatures and on limited substrates and thus nanotubes cannot be used in most applications

Canatu has patent protected innovations that remove all of the above mentioned bottlenecks.

Since Canatu's raw materials are just carbon and iron and the manufacturing process operates at atmospheric pressure, production costs are low. Moreover, waste products from other industrial processes, such as CO, methane and alcohols, can be used to produce Canatu's carbon nanomaterials, making ours a very environmentally friendly technology.

Canatu has granted and penting patents covering, for instance:
  • novel Carbon Nanotube and NanoBud™ production methods,
  • novel wet and dry separation and patterned deposition methods for high aspect ratio molecules such as DNA, CNTs and NanoBuds™,
  • the new NanoBud™ material and NanoBud™ applications in, for instance electronics, optics and energy storage and,
  • new methods for characterizing tubular nanomaterials.