Nanoco hits £1.2m milestone

A Nanoco reactor producing quantum dots in solution

NANOCO, the pioneering nanotechnology firm, has earned a £1.2m milestone payment from a Japanese electronics manufacturer.

The Manchester-based business makes quantum dots - tiny fluorescent particles of semiconductor material which have the ability to emit light.

They are in demand by the makers of liquid crystal displays for computers, TVs and phones because they consume less power than existing systems.

Nanoco has rivals in the US such as Nanosys and QD Vision but it is the only firm producing quantum dots on such a scale and free of heavy metals such as cadmium. Last year it opened its first commercial manufacturing facility at The Heath Business and Technical Park, on the site of an ICI research centre in Runcorn, which has enabled the company to scale up production of quantum dots from milligrams to its first kilograms.

The latest payment required the firm to produce 1kg of red dots which the company says is a major technical achievement. Nanoco expects a further £600,000 when it delivers a batch of green dots in the coming months which will lead to a 1kg order triggering another £1.2m payment.

Chief executive Michael Edelman said: "We are delighted to have produced this 1kg quantity of red quantum dots to the customer's specifications. The production of our first 1kg of quantum dots is a significant achievement, and a further endorsement of our recently commissioned manufacturing facility. We now look forward to completing the green technical milestones and producing 1kg of green quantum dots."

Nanoco, which was established in 2001 to commercialise research from the University of Manchester and Imperial College, London, is also applying its technology to solar panels and anti-counterfeiting devices.

Information from the Business Desk