Nano-Tex Named To Top 100 Private Companies

Congrats to Nano-Tex for its inclusion in Red Herring's list of the Top 100 Private Companies in North America.

While the list seems to be an extended effort to prove to potential investors that tech is far from dead, even in a post-dot-com bubble world, that doesn't makethe accomplishments of Nano-Tex any less exciting.

Even if making better fabric for, say, pants, doesn't sound nearly as exciting as scrubbing artery walls with tiny machines.

You may snicker, but look around you. Chances are just about everyone you see is wearing clothing. Nano-Tex, whichs sells chemical treatment systems to mills that "fundamentally transforms fabric at the nano-level" has a potentially huge market.

The company already provides its chemical treatments to a family of 80 mills around the world.

It's a pretty wild concept: by employing chemical nanotechnology that bonds with the fiber at the sub-micron level, you get fabric that don't look or feel different, but offers features such as superior stain and water resistance, or permanent resistance to static cling. (At least if you avoid dry cleaning, which Nano-Tex recommends you avoid for all fabrics with its treatment.)

Example: the treatment for stain resistance creates legions of 'nanowhiskers' on the individual fibers.

If our high school physics isn't failing us, those nanowhiskers create more opportunity for surface tension on the fabric, which means liquids bead and roll off rather than disperse so they can be absorbed into the fibers.

Listen to a lot of cheerleaders for nanotech, and you'll hear a throaty whisper describing tiny machines doing seemingly impossible things. The same sort of throaty whisper that used to be aimed at, say, virtual reality. Those artery scrubbing machines just might be real some day.

But the truth is that a lot of nano's success is going to be in industries like textiles. Or soap. Nano-Tex is an early example of success that's worth keeping an eye on.

For more nanotechnology stories, check out ExtremeNano.

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in ExtremeTech.