SPRINGDALE, Ark. – TuffTek by NanoMech, a company affiliated with the University of Arkansas, has been named a 2014 Award Winner by the internationally renowned Edison Award. The distinguished awards, inspired by Thomas Edison’s persistence and inventiveness, recognize innovation, creativity and ingenuity in the global economy.

“It’s exciting to see companies like NanoMech continuing Thomas Edison’s legacy of challenging conventional thinking,” said Frank Bonafilia, executive director of the Edison Awards. “Edison Awards recognizes the game-changing products and services, and the teams that brought them to consumers.” These award winners were recognized April 30 at the Edison Awards Annual Gala, held in the historic Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco, Calif.

Jim Phillips, NanoMech chief executive officer, said, “The TuffTek platform is the company’s patented, award-winning and nanoengineered advanced coating technology incorporated into cutting tools and wear parts for machining materials used in automotive, aerospace, energy and other sectors, and critical wear parts for machines and vehicles. Its novel bio-inspired surface architecture — designed to mimic a lotus leaf — is capable of self-sustained lubrication. A tool or wear part coated with the TuffTek technology can outlast any similar tool on the market today. TuffTek is a true R&D success story.”

TuffTek extreme wear-resistant coating product lines of cutting tools and critical machine wear parts provide innovative solutions for enhancing machining productivity as high as 100 percent to 1,000 percent for many manufacturing applications, compared to traditional cutting tools, and machines most commonly used, as well as difficult-to-machine alloys such as pre-hardened steel, hardened steels, cast iron, and others which are the back bone of automotive and trucking, aerospace, military, earthmover and other strategic industries. This invention is a major sustainability solution as

TuffTek coated carbide significantly extends the life of tungsten, which is a mission critical strategic element for manufacturing in the U.S. and globally, but is significantly declining in availability. TuffTek extreme wear resistant coating technology and products also allow dry or minimum-quantity-lubrication machining operation where millions of gallons of machining liquid could be saved annually! The combination of exceptional wear resistance and unsurpassed toughness which as an invention is inspired-by-nature, brings TuffTek cutting tools performance beyond any other cutting insert presently on the market.

Edison Award nominees are judged by more than 3,000 senior business executives and academics from across the nation whose votes acknowledge the Finalists’ success in meeting the award’s stringent criteria of quality.

Ajay Malshe, chief technology officer and founder of NanoMech, was honored by the award and immediately thought of those with whom he has worked. “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. I would also like to thank the teams at the Nano Materials Science and Engineering Institute at the University of Arkansas, the National Science Foundations and the Environmental Protection Agency for their contributions over the years.”

Malshe is a Distinguished Professor of mechanical engineering at the univesity.

NanoMech is an internationally recognized world-class nanomanufacturer with top award winning breakthrough innovations in machining, coatings, lubrication and strategic military applications.

In addition to the Edison Award Finalist honor in Materials Science, TuffTek has received numerous accolades and awards, recently receiving the coveted R&D 100 Award in November 2013. The company has also received the Frost & Sullivan Award for Excellence in Technology. The industry’s leading trade journal, Cutting Tool Engineering Magazine, has dubbed TuffTek as the “holy grail of coating” in a major article. Additionally, U.S. federal agencies have shown their support for the technology by awarding NanoMech project grants for various applications of the technology. NanoMech is a member of President Obama’s Materials Genome Initiative, the U.S. Manufacturing Competitiveness Initiative (USMCI) and the U.S. Technology Leadership and Strategy Initiative, both based in Washington, DC.

Deborah Wince-Smith, CEO of the Council on Competitiveness and also a member of NanoMech’s Board of Directors, praised NanoMech for its innovative work. “In a world of turbulence, transition and transformation, nothing matters more to the competitiveness of companies and countries than innovation and manufacturing prowess. The ability to develop and deploy the most cutting-edge tools and products to bolster U.S. advanced manufacturing will deliver outsized benefits to the U.S. industrial base. NanoMech and TuffTek are at the leading edge of a resurgent U.S. manufacturing capability – on that is not dumb, dirty, dangerous and disappearing: but is smart, safe, sustainable and surging.”

The Edison Awards is a program conducted by Edison Universe, a charitable organization dedicated to fostering future innovators. The 2014 Edison Awards are sponsored by Lpsos. For more information about the Edison Awards, Edison Universe and a list of past winners, visit www.edisonawards.com.