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NEI Announces the Issuance of Multiple Patents on Self-Healing & Superhydrophobic Coatings


June 23, 2015

Somerset, New Jersey (USA) – NEI Corporation announced today that the US Patent and Trademark Office has issued patents to the company on self-healing, superhydrophobic, and abrasion resistant coatings. With the allowance of five patents and the introduction of an array of coating products, NEI’s concerted efforts to develop and implement practical, multi-functional coatings are now coming to fruition.

There is great interest in functional coatings, for both industrial and consumer applications, when the coating or surface treatment provides functionalities beyond the usual protective and aesthetic properties. For example, self-healing coatings autonomously repair damage, hydrophobic coatings are able to vigorously repel water droplets, oleophobic coatings prevent “oil” molecules from sticking to the surface, and self-cleaning or easy-to-clean coatings minimize or eliminate the need for chemicals during washing. Commercial products to date have met with limited success because they are not engineered to meet all of the functional performance requirements that an application may need. NEI’s patented and patent-pending technologies address this market need.

In the recent past, NEI has introduced several coatings under the registered trade name NANOMYTE®. For example, NANOMYTE® MEND is based on US Patent 8,987,352, where a thermally induced physical self-healing phenomenon leads to gap closing and crack sealing. The self-healing coating involves a unique phase-separated morphology that facilitates the delivery of the self-healing agent to the damage site (such as a scratch or crack) thereby restoring the coating appearance & function. In response to the need for waterborne, self-healing coatings for non-metallic substrates, NEI has developed a waterborne, polyurethane-based, self-healing coating (US Patent 8,664,298). A more recent patent-pending version of MEND, referred to as MEND-RT, allows self-healing at near ambient temperature. It is used as the inter-layer of a coating stack and has been shown to enhance the corrosion resistance of traditional coating systems. The MEND coating platform is based on polyurethane, but the principle can be applied to other coating systems as well.

Self-healing principles can also be applied to surface treatments of metals, whereby the pretreatments can mimic the performance of chromate conversion coatings. To this end, NEI has developed a series of pretreatments for different metals where a chemical self-healing mechanism imparts corrosion resistance. For example, NANOMYTE® PT-60 is a patent-pending conversion coating for use on magnesium alloys. The nanoscale structure of the surface allows ions to diffuse to the damage site, forming a barrier that prevents further corrosion. In addition, PT-60 has been engineered to act as a tie layer that bonds the overlying primer with the metal, resulting in excellent field performance. Similarly, NEI’s NANOMYTE® PT-10M provides self-healing protection for aluminum, while patent-pending PT-20 is designed for use on steel, and PT-30 (US Patent 8,741,074) is used on copper alloys.

As previously mentioned, combining multiple functionalities in a coating, such as self-healing and superhydrophobicity, presents new opportunities not available until now. For example, NEI has been issued a patent (US Patent 8,968,459) for a superhydrophobic coating composition that also has a self-healing function similar to that of plant leaves. This self-healing, superhydrophobic coating mimics lotus leaves, which maintain their superhydrophobicity by repairing the damaged surface layer with a continuously-secreting hydrophobic epicuticular wax. Equipped with the ability to repair or renew itself, the novel NEI coating overcomes the durability problem of traditional superhydrophobic coatings. Most recently, NEI was awarded a patent for a transparent and scratch resistant coating (US Patent 9,006,370) for use on plastic substrates, including polycarbonate and acrylic. NANOMYTE® SR-100 is a hardcoat that exhibits significantly better abrasion resistance than commercially available scratch resistant coating products. Scratch resistance is a sought-after property for coatings in a variety of applications, such as 3-D printed objects, ophthalmic and sports-wear lenses, automobile and airplane windows.

For a more detailed discussion on the company’s patented coating technologies and applications, please see our Patented Coating Technologies Brief.


About NEI Corporation:

NEI Corporation is an application driven company that manufactures and sells Advanced Materials products, provides materials development services, and performs contract-based R&D for public and private entities. NEI’s products, which are sold under the registered trademark NANOMYTE®, are backed by a suite of issued and pending patents. NEI has built a strong manufacturing and R&D infrastructure that enables rapid transition of concepts to products. The company has a 10,000 square foot, state-of-the-art materials manufacturing and testing facility in Somerset, New Jersey, equipped with high temperature furnaces with controlled atmospheres, mixing, blending and drying equipment, coaters, particle characterization instruments, corrosion testing equipment, polymer films & coatings characterization, and a Li-ion battery testing laboratory. Since its inception, NEI has partnered with small companies, large multinational corporations, U.S. Defense Laboratories, U.S. National Laboratories, and Universities. The relationships take on different forms, ranging from a strategic partnership to joint development efforts targeted at specific applications.

For more information, contact:
Ms. Krista Martin
+1 (732) 868‐3141
sales@neicorporation.com
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NEI Introduces Custom-Produced Solid Electrolyte Materials


June 17, 2015

Somerset, New Jersey (USA) – NEI Corporation, a leading developer and manufacturer of specialty cathode, anode, and electrolyte materials for Lithium-ion batteries, has announced an expansion of its services for producing Custom Solid Electrolyte Materials. Most commercial Lithium-ion batteries usually contain an electrolyte that is dissolved in flammable solvents. The use of a solid electrolyte eliminates the flammability issue associated with currently used liquid electrolytes. Customers can now purchase solid electrolyte materials with the composition of their choice. Whether it is an oxide material (e.g., LATP, LLTO, LNBO or any other mixed metal oxide) or a sulfide material (e.g., LPS, LSPS, or composites of sulfide containing compounds), NEI can produce powders anywhere in the range of small lot quantities to multiple kilograms. Additionally, the primary particle size can be reduced further into the ultrafine or nanoscale regime, if needed.

NEI has also developed processes to combine cathode particles and solid electrolyte materials. For example, in a composite morphology, the cathode and solid electrolyte particles are in intimate contact with each other and evenly distributed throughout the material. Customers can specify the cathode and solid electrolyte compositions of interest, and NEI can custom produce powders with the composite morphology. Similarly, the solid electrolyte material can be deposited as a conformal film on cathode particles. Ionic conductivity measurements indicate that the ionic conductivity of the pristine solid electrolyte is largely preserved when it is combined with the cathode materials (the ionic conductivity of pristine solid electrolyte is 8 x 10-4 S/cm, whereas the ionic conductivity of solid electrolyte combined with a cathode is 5 x 10-4 S/cm). Finally, the composite material can be mixed with an ionically conducting binder and cast as a dense film. By making solid state electrolyte materials available in a more useable form, it is our intent to make it easy for Li-ion battery researchers to develop the next generation all-solid-state Li-ion batteries.

NEI Custom Solid ElectrolytesNEI’s Custom Solid Electrolyte Materials services build upon NEI’s patent-pending, ready-to-cast, solid electrolyte materials. Over the past year, NEI has supplied multi-kilogram quantities of their newly developed solid electrolyte powder, NANOMYTE® SSE-10 (Li10SnP2S12 or LSPS). NANOMYTE® SSE-10, which has been used by a number of scientists and engineers for developing and prototyping “all solid” Lithium batteries, has also been made available in the form of a slurry (dispersion), NANOMYTE® SSE-10D, which can be cast into flexible tapes. SSE-10D is composed of surface-modified LSPS particles dispersed in organic solvent, which can be removed after the tape or film is formed.

CSE_Fig4Post Process Solid Electrolyte and Composite Powder into a Slurry and Tape

NEI Corporation has been a long trusted source for customized cathode and anode materials used in lithium batteries. The company specializes in developing new compositions and particle morphologies, including nanoscale particle engineering. NEI also has an extensive battery research and characterization facility, which includes multi-channel cell testers. The introduction of NEI’s service for custom produced solid electrolytes will provide new capabilities to lithium battery developers and manufacturers to enable practical solid state batteries.

For more information, see our slideshow on Custom Produced Solid Electrolytes »


About NEI Corporation:

NEI Corporation is an application driven company that utilizes nanotechnology to develop and produce advanced materials. The company’s core competencies are in synthesizing nanoscale materials and prototyping products that incorporate the advanced materials. NEI Corporation offers cathode and anode materials (both powders and coated electrodes), and solid state electrolytes for use in lithium-ion batteries. The company produces battery materials through a scalable and economical synthesis process, which is adaptable to different materials compositions and particle morphologies.

For more information, contact:
Ms. Krista Martin
+1 (732) 868‐3141
sales@neicorporation.com
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