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1-   Can you briefly explain what your solution is all about? What’s unique about it?

Matteriall is aiming to come up with a material portfolio consisting of the most ever superior materials which are feasibly manufacturable and applicable for applications primarily in the space/aerospace, healthcare, sustainable energetics, wearables and electronics industries. The objective of the Matteriall project is to ensure the ultimate theoretical characteristics of the most advanced nano-scaled structures be practically applicable to every macro-scaled structure in order to enhance life quality. 

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are remarkable objects that look set to revolutionize the technological landscape entirely in the near future. CNTs can have 50 times more mechanical strength than steel and 1000 times more current carrying capacity than copper. CNTs are the best heat-conducting material ever known and they are chemically very stable like graphite. And above all, they are very light, their density is one-sixth of that of steel. Tomorrow’s society will be shaped by CNT applications, just as silicon-based or plastic technologies dominate society today. However, today, delivering these theoretical nano-scaled material characteristics of CNTs to a macro-scaled level is the bottleneck of the current state of nanotechnology. The objective of Matteriall is to develop a technique which will eventually enable us to bring these extraordinary characteristics to real-life applications. Matteriall’s unique manufacturing technology will deliver fibres, yarns and films that are made of essentially pure CNTs with superior properties.

2-   What’s the story behind your company? How was the idea for this business born?

The founder of Matteriall, Hakan Taner is a holder of a Metallurgical Materials Engineering degree and has experience in nanomaterials, space/aerospace, defence and electrical/electronics industries in both technical and commercial aspects. He has hands-on experience in nanomaterials production and earlier developed a unique chemical vapour deposition process in order to produce carbon nanotubes from plantal sources. Hence, it was possible to identify the bottlenecks and the challenges in the materials domain. Eventually, the Matteriall project had been generated along with more than 10 years of hands-on experience and feedback from customers with actual metrics.

3-   Which is the challenge that your solution tackles, and how do you set apart from the other companies with similar solutions?

The Matteriall manufacturing process will be entirely integrated and consists of 11 different steps in which each step has its own unique design and parameters. Thus, the process is based on a great number of parameter optimization studies.

 4-   What are your goals, and what’s the biggest challenge you are trying to overcome at this moment?

The objective of Matteriall is to possess the most ever advanced materials portfolio being manufactured with its own integrated technology which has a spectrum from the manipulation of the atomic alignments to the production of macro-scaled single-piece components.

Yet performing as an SME and an early-phase enterprise, the workload certainly is incomparably higher than as it would have been performed by a large organization. However, the challenge in question comes up with the opportunity of acquiring all the know-how for our early-phase staff. 

5-   What advice would you give to an entrepreneur trying to pave his/her way in the space sector landscape?

A mission to be launched in outer space requires collaboration on an extensive scale consisting of experience and know-how, in every single technical domain from agriculture to Satcom. Accordingly, combining the existing technical knowledge and experience with the understanding of the industry requirements and keeping up with the recent developments in the domain in a constant manner will provide a remarkable contribution to the industry. 

6-   About SUN, why did you apply?

SUN programme team had reached out to the relevant space clusters of every contributing member state. The objectives and the framework set by SUN team members were to provide enhancement in especially Proof-of-Business and networking skills for early-phase space start-ups.