THEY may be small but two Brisbane-based nanotechnology firms have big potential, after forging strong international ties at a recent trade fair in Japan.
Very Small Particle Company (VSPC) director Peter Talbot says a number of companies showed interest in his safe environmentally-friendly batteries that last seven years and charge in minutes.
The company has a patent over the process of producing the batteries with nanotechnology, and with tests currently underway VSPC is expecting large scale manufacturing in 2010.
“Our time has come,” he says.
The Japanese partnerships would add to existing ties in Germany, the US, Canada and China.
“We’ve done all this work in Brisbane and found we can compete on a global scale from here, which is good to see,” he says.
“We’ve had great interest from overseas to build large factories, but we’re looking for support from the government to do the same thing in Australia, as we’d prefer to build here.”
In the past VSPC has been involved in emission catalyst vehicles, and has had contract work with big companies in Germany and the US with clean diesel, but in Talbot’s opinion nanomaterials are the biggest thing yet.
The other Brisbane company to make an impression at Nano Tech 2009 was TenasiTech, which produces a material that is stable and durable under high temperatures, and can be used in anything from running shoes to golf balls, biomedical devices or industrial applications in the mining industry.
Representative Darren Martin says with a $320,000 first stage investment from Uniseed, TenasiTech is in the process of market validation and had discussions with two big companies at the exhibition – one Japanese and one from the US.
“It was very worthwhile going. We were looking at similar businesses and how we could benchmark, but we didn’t find anything like what we’re working on — we’re keeping our nose ahead,” he says
TenasiTech is aiming to co-develop what is known as a thermoplastic polyurethane nanocomposite with European companies, and has high hopes to potentially license the technology.
Minister for Tourism, Regional Development and Industry Desley Boyle says global sales of nanotechnology products are expected to exceed US$1 trillion by 2015.
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