NEW MATERIALS
Thomas Edison scoured the planet to find the perfect lightbulb filament, but only after zapping thousands of candidates did he hit on a winner - carbonized sewing thread. Today's inventors rely on the same sort of serendipity, but Symyx, a start-up in Santa Clara, California, is pioneering a process that could ID new materials for everything from microchips to battleships.
As a UC Berkeley chemist, Symyx cofounder Peter Schultz realized that combinatorial synthesis - the technique budding biotech companies use to hunt for new drugs - could be co-opted for materials science. His process starts by applying a mist of various chemicals through a selective filter to a polished crystal wafer. The result is an array of thousands of tiny samples, each with slightly different ingredients, that allows researchers to analyze hundreds of materials at a pop.
Schultz has high hopes for the technology, which could lead to new products like plastics with improved elasticity and brighter phosphors for pixel displays. And industry is listening. So far, the company has attracted an impressive $95 million in backing from German chemical giants Hoechst and Bayer AG, among others.
By the end of the year, Symyx hopes to develop a batch of new catalytic materials. Catalysts make the chemical biz tick, accelerating chemical reactions - like those that turn petroleum into plastic - without being consumed by reactions themselves.
"The tech barrier for Symyx's work is high," says Winifred Halsey, a combinatorial science analyst for TechKnowledge Associates. "You have to be good at both chemistry and materials engineering, but Symyx is ahead of the curve."
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