Ecology Coatings pushes UV nanotech films

Ecology Coatings recently received a $5M investment to help it push its innovative ultraviolet coatings and materials technologies products to market.

The investment will provide capital for building testing and production facilities, which are a central part of winning partnerships and thus opening up large commercial opportunities, according to industry experts.

The challenge of commercializing new materials is it typically takes time for large companies such as automotive and suppliers to adopt them in production use (see Water, materials and biofuel get some cash).

“In terms of our timeline, there are commercialization frustrations in terms of the lengthy adoption periods common to large automotive and supplier companies,” said David Morgan, vice president and chief financial officer, to the Cleantech Group.“We anticipate joint venture
announcements in the next 3 to 6 months,” Morgan said.

In the automotive industry, for example, Ecology Coating’s UV coating can be used in place of traditional powder coatings used for applying a thin film to the outside of aluminum, said Ecology Coatings. Those powders, however, require a very hot curing process in which the powder
melts and bonds to the surface.

About 50 percent of the powder material burns off into the surrounding air and is toxic, Morgan said. In contrast, Ecology Coatings said its liquid application process applies one millimeter of material for a one millimeter thin film coating. UV light is applied to the liquid film
which bonds the film to the aluminum in less than 30 seconds, without the requirement for additional heat.

“Clearly, it is a very good time to be in the clean tech industry,” Morgan said. That said, the company is “pitching its UV coating based on the less expensive economics of the technology,” he added.

The infusion of investment gives the startup capital to its clean materials to market in five market segments, which include metals,glass, plastics, paper and electronics (see U.K. puts up £10M for new materials technologies).

“The first tranche of investment is $1.3 million with four additional traches possible over the next 240 days for a maximum of $5 million,” said Morgan.

Ecology Coatings said it selected Equity 11 because of the risk and reward opportunities for the investor. Under the terms of the deal, Equity 11 has a strike price of $.50 per share to convert its equity interest.

Cleantech developments making news in the past 24 hours

• Qteros claims 15-fold improvements in cellulosic ethanol yield
• Solairedirect raises €20M to move into commercial solar
• Intel, Numonyx open $20M water treatment plant in Israel
• Booming data-center business creates troubles for India

View the last week of cleantech developments here | Subscribe to full feed