Firm steeled for auto-design fight

STEEL RESOLVE: Founded in 2002, The NanoSteel Co. Inc. was originally based in Florida before receiving funding to relocate to Rhode Island. Pictured above are President and CEO David Paratore, left, and Vice President of Finance Robert Marini Jr. / PBN PHOTO/CATIA CUEN
STEEL RESOLVE: Founded in 2002, The NanoSteel Co. Inc. was originally based in Florida before receiving funding to relocate to Rhode Island. Pictured above are President and CEO David Paratore, left, and Vice President of Finance Robert Marini Jr. / PBN PHOTO/CATIA CUEN

Carmakers on a frantic push to meet rising, federal fuel-economy standards are looking everywhere for new materials – from carbon fiber to plastics – that will make their vehicles lighter and more efficient.
But The NanoSteel Co. in Providence believes the old standby, steel, could be the future of the automobile, as well as the past.
The West Exchange Street company, founded to commercialize technology developed in federal defense-department laboratories, has developed new steel microstructures that are stronger than traditional forms of the metal.
And by using stronger steel, automakers can use less of it and create vehicles that are as safe as older models but lighter and more efficient.
‘Stick with Steel – that’s our motto,’ said NanoSteel CEO David Paratore. “The majority of cars have always been steel and for 100 years it has continued to evolve and improve. People believed they had been reaching the limit with steel, but they haven’t.”
The stakes for becoming the go-to material for the next generation of fuel-efficient automobiles are high.
Producers of aluminum, one of the materials competing with steel, have seen sales to the automobile industry climb steadily as carmakers use the metal in more and more parts of vehicles.
Last month the marketing director of Alcoa Inc., the leading producer of aluminum, said due to increased interest from carmakers, demand for the metal should double by 2025. Days later Alcoa hailed Tesla Motors’ introduction of an all-aluminum, all-electric sedan.
But NanoSteel sees the new nano-structured steel it announced the development of last month as a breakthrough that will keep steel on top, at least in automotive structural panels.
Where today’s new cars have structural panels the width of a nickel, Paratore says his company’s technology will eventually reduce the thickness of a panel down to the width of a dime.
Unlike previous high-strength versions of steel, the new NanoSteel design is not brittle, can be shaped and does not need to be formed at high temperatures.
This allows the new generation of automotive steel to maximize its advantages over other materials – namely the scale of existing production and economies that go with it – while dramatically reducing weight and fuel consumption. “The sheer capacity of industries in aluminum are not at the scale of steel,” Paratore said.
To achieve increased strength in steel without changing other fundamental characteristics of the metal, NanoSteel manipulates the grains of steel that, on the microscopic level, Paratore compares to the crystals in a granite countertop.
The technology was first developed by scientists at the U.S. Defense Department’s national labs in Idaho and NanoStreel was given exclusive rights to commercialize it.
The company was originally based in Florida, but in 2006 received a round of investment and hired Paratore, who was living in Rhode Island, as CEO.
NanoSteel’s largest supplier was Carpenter Technology Corp. in Woonsocket, so the investors decided to move the company to Providence to save on executive-relocation costs and gain proximity to Carpenter.
From six employees in 2006, the company is now up to 40, with half of those in Rhode Island and half in a research facility in Idaho.
While the venture capitalists putting money into NanoSteel are betting on the automotive market, the company’s current revenue comes from sales of metallic coatings used to protect the exteriors of mining trucks. The company also makes steel foil that acts as a scratch-resistant stainless steel.
Beyond automotive, NanoSteel is also looking at the oil and gas pipeline market.
NanoSteel is currently conducting production trials with two large manufacturers on its automotive sheet steel and hopes to release the steel for car companies to start testing in vehicles in six to nine months.
The company has already added a handful of workers this year and Paratore expects the number of employees to increase with the further commercialization of the automotive sheet steel.
While carmakers have already exceeded their expectations for improving fuel efficiency over the past few years, federal fuel standards will continue to increase, up to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, propelling the need for even greater advances in technology.
“We have every expectation we should be growing significantly in the next one to three years,” Paratore said. •

COMPANY PROFILE
The NanoSteel Co. Inc.
OWNERS: Employees and investors led by EnerTech Capital and Fairhaven Capital
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Advanced steel-alloy design
LOCATION: 272 West Exchange St.,
Providence
EMPLOYEES: 40 (20 in R.I.)
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2002
ANNUAL SALES: NA

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