MIT Spinoff Makes Metal Coatings In Marlborough | Xtalic wants your computer, car to last longer
I’ve been to a good number of industrial parks while writing this column, but one I’ve resisted writing about is the massive industrial/office park that takes up Simarrano Drive, Cedar Hill Street, Bartlett Street and others in Marlborough.
The reasons I’ve been there but haven’t written about it are that everyone else has been there and it seems like everyone is familiar with many of the businesses that call the area home. Some of the biggest names in Central Massachusetts: Evergreen Solar, for example, calls this expansive, rambling, suburban park home.
But one company caught my eye a while back when it announced that it had received $10 million in new venture funding to help commercialize its “tailored nano-metal coatings” to potential customers in the automotive, electronics and other industries.
That company is Xtalic Corp., a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff that just two years ago was holed up in a lab trying to figure out if its big idea would work at all.
Now, company CEO Tom Clay says Xtalic’s nano-metal coatings will be in many of the products you see and buy and use in just a year.
Many familiar products are coated with metal. Think chrome plating, perhaps the most easily recognizable metal coating. But chrome plating is a dirty, dirty process that’s bad for the environment and bad for the people who do it.
And chrome and other metal coatings have another, more elemental drawback: They tend to wear easily.
Crystal Control
Xtalic’s big idea is the control of the structure of the metals used in their coatings at the nano, that is, very small, scale.
Gaining that control allows Xtalic to produce performance metal coatings with compact crystal structures that result in more durable, scratch-resistant coatings that, in electronics equipment, last between five and seven times longer than other materials, according to Clay.
The company’s coatings can also be used to coat trim pieces on automobiles exposed to harsh environments or heavy use, such as long-haul trucks. Other industries that could benefit from the hard-wearing nickel and tungsten coatings include molding forming equipment and the oil and gas industry.
But apart from those in search of a higher-performance coating, there are some who are simply trying to do the “green” thing, and the Xtalic process uses no chromium.
Clay said the company’s three-year trip from lab to the circuit boards in everyone’s home computer is relatively fast for a materials company, a sector that generally sees extensive scale-up times before hitting the market.
But the past couple of years have seen extensive testing and retesting and the refinement of the chemical reaction that forms Xtalic’s products. Clay said the company is between six and nine months into trials of its products and is even looking ahead to hiring electrochemists in the near future.
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