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Company Background
Overview
• Founded 2007 in Rochester, New York
• Industry leader in the science of designing, scaling and
manufacturing of nanomaterials as a service to customers
developing products
• Focus on metal, metal oxide and ceramic nanoparticles
• 12+ year track record of successfully delivery for customers
By the Numbers
• 50+ Employees
• 3,500+ SQM dedicated to R&D, Manufacturing & Admin
• Fully integrated, in-house team covering ‘cradle to grave’
commercialization: research, development, analytics,
engineering, manufacturing, QA / QC and logistics
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Company Background
Founding Thesis
• The cost of developing advanced expertise in nanomaterials is
prohibitively expensive
• Nanomaterial design, scale-up and / or manufacturing is a
significant barrier to entry for companies considering the use
of nanotechnology in their products or systems
• Our focus is timely and cost-effective support to industry from
applied research through manufacturing
• Initially enabled by our roots to Kodak in developing
photographic film emulsions, with significant investment in
capability expansion over the past decade
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Our Customers & Work
Customer Profile
• Today, supporting over 40+ broad industries across a wide spectrum of applications
• Mid & large-cap consumer and industrial companies
• Defense-industrial base for offensive / defense platforms
• Imminent launch of new focus area in life sciences
Our Work
• Applied research, development, commercialization and manufacturing
• In particular, thrive on difficult to achieve material specifications
• > 95% of our work is for customer’s confidential next generation products or systems
• 100% of our work is focused on custom, tailor made nanomaterials perfectly matched for customer’s
performance and product integration needs
Sampling of Customer Supported Application Areas
• Commercial: Aerospace, Architectural, Automotive, Catalysis, Coatings, Displays, Electronics, Medical
Devices, Optics, Personal Care, Personal Protective Equipment, Pharmaceuticals, Textiles
• Defense: Armoring, Electrical Systems, Electronics, Energy, Projectiles… and others…
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Use Cases
Typical Customer Use Cases
Commercial Considerations
• Lack of internal expertise in design, scaling and /
or manufacturing nanomaterials
• Fixing or re-designing internally developed
nanomaterials for:
• Missing critical features and attributes
• Scalability or cost
• Integration challenges to products
• Scaling existing customer created nanomaterial
formulations
Strategic Considerations
• Surety of delivering the final material solution w/
the capability to manufacture
• Speed and cost of completion
• Avoiding non-core internal investments
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Collaborative Business Model
Customers
• Subject matter experts in finished products or systems
• Seeking to leverage nanomaterials for performance benefits
• Engaged in product research, development and manufacturing
Cerion
• Subject matter experts in nanomaterials
• Supporting research through manufacturing
Intellectual Property
• Keeping it simple… zero competition with customers
• Cerion does not develop end-use applications… only materials
• Division of intellectual property is clean
• Customers = Nanomaterial composition of matter
• Cerion = Process to design & manufacture the nanomaterial
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Core Pillars of Our Capabilities
Precision control over size and
technical attributes of
nanoparticles
Focus on integration into a
customer’s product or system
Seamless translation from the lab
to the manufacturing floor
Cost effective production that
scales with customer’s product
growth in the market
BOTTOM UP PROCESSES
PRECISELY CONTROLLED CHEMICAL REACTIONS
The Basics
Particle Size & Distribution
Morphology
Surface Charge
Purity
Agglomeration Control
Manipulation
Homogeneous alloys
Dopants, Promoters, Particle Surface Coatings
Core / Shell ( / Shell)
Conjugation of small molecules & other chemistries
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Core Pillars of Our Capabilities
Precision control over size and
technical attributes of
nanoparticles
Focus on integration into a
customer’s product or system
Seamless translation from the lab
to the manufacturing floor
Cost effective production that
scales with customer’s product
growth in the market
Liquid Medias
Aqueous Suspensions
‘Shifting’ from aqueous to over 40+ organic carriers
Extensive library of particle surfactants / capping
agents deployed based on customer product
integration requirements
Support for customer proprietary fluids (resins, oils)
Powders
Pastes
Dispersible ‘Wet Cakes’
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Core Pillars of Our Capabilities
Precision control over size and
technical attributes of
nanoparticles
Focus on integration into a
customer’s product or system
Seamless translation from the lab
to the manufacturing floor
Cost effective production that
scales with customer’s product
growth in the market
1,000 to 10,000X scale-up of laboratory made
materials to the manufacturing floor
Focus on consistency and repeatability
Preservation of nanoparticle features, attributes &
performance at production scale
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Core Pillars of Our Capabilities
Precision control over size and
technical attributes of
nanoparticles
Focus on integration into a
customer’s product or system
Seamless translation from the lab
to the manufacturing floor
Cost effective production that
scales with customer’s product
growth in the market
Prototype scale manufacturing for in-house
testing and qualification trials
Low & high volume full-rate production systems
150 MT (dry basis) production today
Expansion to 500+ MT (dry basis) underway
Focus on lean manufacturing and just-in-time
principles
Industry leading low-capital intensity
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Broad Materials Expertise
Sampling of Material Systems
Aluminum
Barium
Boron
Ceria
Cobalt
Copper
Gold
Iron
Nickel
Niobium
Palladium
Platinum
Silica
Silver
Titania
Tungsten
Yttrium
Zinc
Zirconia
76 nm Mesoporous Silica
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Commercialization Mindset
Commercialization in our context is ensuring
delivery of nanomaterials at manufacturing
scale
Customer’s material needs, technical
requirements and cost expectations are
diverse and varied
To meet customer needs commercialization
begins on day 1 in research…
…even if the material never gets to market 8 nm Homogeneous Alloy of Silver and Palladium
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Commercialization Considerations
Synthesis Methods
• In the market today, there is no ‘silver bullet’ nanoparticle
synthesis method that meets all material, technical, cost and
customization needs
• All synthesis methods have pro’s and con’s
• Selecting the route that is best suited to provide the best
technical and cost outcomes is critical
• Production Pathways
• On-line: Precipitation, Hydro / Solvo Thermal, High
Temperature Processing
• Competency Building Investments: Ion Exchange, High Energy
Milling (+ Cryogenic)
Pilot Scale Precipitation of Silver Chloride
Nanoparticles
Precipitation Production Cell
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Commercialization in Research
Particle Design
• Collaborative process with customers
• Rapid iteration of candidate materials to achieve proof of concept performance in customer systems
• Research optimization to achieve maximum performance and ease of integration with least number of trade-offs
• 50% of effort = nanoparticle design with technical performance and cost in mind
• 50% of effort = focused on integrating nanoparticles in to customer complex and varied systems
‘Design for Manufacturing’ in the Laboratory
• Internal program developed and refined over 10+ years
• Goal is to ensure translation from the research lab > development / scale-up > manufacturing floor
• Design within plant operating window and / or early flag of deviations that require engineering solutions
• On-going ‘formula’ reviews for processability, scalability, cost, supply chain, regulatory, logistics and safety
• Whole of company approach… research, development, engineering, manufacturing, finance, procurement,
regulatory, logistics and others
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Commercialization in Development
Development Phase
• Preparations
• Replicate lab-scale formulas to validate research work
• Apply known scaling factors to move to next level of scale (10 to 50X)
• Stress test formulas and process
• Push processing boundaries, explore process excursions and define safe operating window of specific
customer material
• Spike known contaminants in feedstocks to understand material impacts
• Optimize future manufacturing process
• Optimize for chemical and volumetric yield
• Optimize for process simplicity, tact time and automation parameters
• All efforts driven towards manufacturing at the lowest cost possible at all scales of production
• Prepare for commercial manufacturing
• Accreditation of raw material suppliers
• Engineering solutions required for manufacturing created and validated (when needed)
• Customer focused validation feedback loop throughout the process
• Internal screening for application performance (where possible)
• External accreditation loop with customers for performance
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Commercialization in Development
• Development Phase Outcomes
• Draft standard operating procedures of manufacturing process
• Material handling and safety requirements defined
• Quality control and quality assurance parameters established
• Supply chain / logistics understood
• Regulatory requirements defined
• Deep understanding of cost at various scales of production
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Commercialization in Manufacturing
• Into the Plant
• Platform manufacturing systems well characterized, instrumented, data logged and mostly automated
• Scaling factors well understood and characterized
• Move to prototype scale and accredit material production (10 to 50X)
• Process repeated for transition to larger production systems
• General rule of thumb… post-prototype scale… minimal work to move to larger production
• Thereafter
• Two options:
• >90% of customer materials produced in-house
• <10% build, accredit and install production systems at customer site
