History

MODUMETAL'S HISTORY

Modumetal was founded by Christina Lomasney, a physicist, and John Whitaker, a chemical engineer, to advance the state-of-the art in and to realize the commercial potential of advanced nanolaminated materials. These two had worked together at Isotron Corporation. There, they realized the exciting market opportunity that existed in advanced nanolaminated metals, and in 2006 decided to spin it out. John and Christina immediately hired Leslie Warren, a unique mechanical engineer, and together, these three launched Modumetal in 2006.

Modumetal's history dates back much further though. It starts during the Bronze Age, when the importance of advanced alloys was first realized and heat-based metals manufacturing was first invented. Since that time, advances in metals technology have involved only two things: modifying chemistry and modifying microstructure ... and in thousands of years, that hasn't changed.

In fact, until the turn of the century, steel itself was considered a specialty metal. Its chemistry and microstructure were controlled only by the craftsmen who made it. That was true until a man name Bessemer figured out a blast furnace-based manufacturing process that resulted in an explosion in steel manufacturing and use around the world. His manufacturing technology expanded the use of steel in many industries, including railroad, automotive and building infrastructure.

A little before Bessemer's groundbreaking invention came along, a group of scientists discovered that they could produce metal by another process that used not heat, but electrochemistry. This process grew and in recent years realized an exciting turn when researchers realized that, unlike heat-based manufacturing processes, electrochemical manufacturing can be used to produce a unique class of laminated and nanolamianted metals. And, these nanolaminated metals were found to have extraordinary properties:

    •  they can outperform conventional materials in corrosion resistance, structural performance, thermal barrier performance,
       and much more;
    •  the interfaces between materials can enable a whole new level of performance beyond those that can be achieved by
       chemistry and microstructure alone, and
    •  the process of growing metal enables a whole new class of applications.

In the late 1990s, a group of inventors devised a commercial process for manufacturing these nanolaminated metals. Modumetal acquired their patent and others like it, and the Company has innovated in the field of nanolaminated materials to realize a number of unique applications and manufacturing processes for deploying these materials across diverse industries.

Since the Bronze Age, advances in metals have been based only on chemistry and microstructure. Modumetal will make it possible now to leverage nanoscale INTERFACES to defy the performance limitations of materials as we know them today and to realize a whole new level of performance.

Like Bessemer did for the Steel Industry, Modumetal's unique and cost-effective, GREEN manufacturing process will enable the widespread use of these advanced nanolaminated materials in applications spanning transportation, corrosion protection, infrastructure, military protection and more.

Today, Modumetal is ushering a whole new generation of materials that leverage the performance of nanolaminated materials and the scalable manufacturing of electrochemistry.