Energy Department to Fund Nanolubricant Plant

(National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has awarded NanoMech Inc. of Springdale, Arkansas a grant for $1 million to develop and test a pilot-scale production facility for manufacturing of NanoGlide, the company’s lubricant additives engineered at nano scale. The DoE grant is a Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award that follows an earlier Phase 1 project that NanoMech recently completed.

NanoGlide is a result of nanoparticle research at the University of Arkansas that the school licensed to NanoMech. The company says this product is a molybdenum sulfide particle based additive that is particularly useful for a number of aerospace and manufacturing applications, range from earth movers and wind turbines to helicopters, trucking fleets, automobiles, and industrial machinery. The grant is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and will support developing and testing a pilot production facility capable of producing commercial-scale quantities of NanoGlide.

One of the target applications for NanoGlide is in wind turbines. A Department of Energy report noted that reliability of wind turbine gearboxes is one of the major challenges to delivering an efficient wind energy platform.