NanoMech Makes R&D 100

NanoMech, a University of Arkansas-affiliated company, has announced that R&D Magazine has included the company in its annual list of R&D 100 award winners for 2013. 

The magazine based the award on Tufftek, a NanoMech innovation that reduces heat resistance and improves precision for cutting tools, according to the company. The R&D 100 is a distinction given yearly to innovative products that are deemed to be technologically significant and the award is referred to within the industry as the “Oscar of Innovation,” according to the magazine.

NanoMech is the only Arkansas company on the 2013 R&D 100. The firm’s headquarters are at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park, which is managed by the University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation.

“NanoMech could not have received this prestigious award without the tireless work of our world-class team of scientists, including Dr. Wenping Jiang, vice president of manufacturing,” said Ajay Malshe, Distinguished Professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Arkansas who founded NanoMech in 2002. “I would also like to thank the teams at Institute for Nanoscience and Engineering at the University of Arkansas, the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency for their contributions over the years.”

Malshe and his research team’s breakthroughs in nano-materials and manufacturing include coating of nanoparticles, the first cubic boron nitride coating for machine tools, advanced nano-engineered lubricants and novel nano-electro-machining. As an internationally competitive nano-particle manufacturer, NanoMech’s products have applications in machining and manufacturing, lubrication and energy, packaging for fresh produce, biomedical implant coatings and strategic military applications.

In 2005, the University of Arkansas licensed technology and patents to NanoMech so the company could commercially develop its products.

Malshe, the company’s chief technology officer, is the Twenty-First Century Professor of Materials, Manufacturing and Integrated Systems in the university’s College of Engineering. 

The R&D Top 100 list was established in 1963 and over the past 51 years has recognized such revolutionary products as the flashcube (1965), the automated teller machine (1973), the halogen lamp (1974), the fax machine (1975), the liquid crystal display (1980), the Kodak Photo CD (1991) and HDTV (1998).