Every year, 300 million tons of plastic waste is produced with only a fraction collected and recycled--the rest ends up on our lands and in our oceans. Microplastics, the result of the breakdown of plastic waste, have led to health issues in humans and animals alike, and an environmental crisis! Countries around the world are starting to recognize the impacts on a global level and more than 170 have pledged to significantly reduce single-use, non-degradable plastics by the year 2030.
Because of this plastic predicament and a commitment to reduce plastic waste globally, companies are hungry for a solution. According to Chee Hau Teoh, President of NFinite Nanotechnology Inc, “There is a lack of adequate solutions for fully recyclable and biodegradable packaging that meet industry and customer demands.” Teoh and Jhi Yong Loke, co-founders of Nfinite have come up with a solution, however. This Waterloo start-up has created barrier coatings for sustainable packaging, like recyclable plastics and compostable biofilms, and it has caught the attention of US and Canadian industry, including large snack food suppliers, and recently received some global attention.
Nfinite is commercializing a new Spatial Atomic Layer Deposition (SALD) system that can provide large area, high-quality nanocoatings up to 100x faster than traditional atomic layer deposition (ALD) systems at a lower cost. This capability has opened a range of new market applications ranging from the semiconductor sector through to energy storage/generation as well as environmentally friendly packaging. With an understanding that the global packaging film market is a $290B industry, Nfinite has made a strategic decision to focus on providing coatings that enable environmentally friendly food storage/packaging films. Nfinite’s superior coatings make sustainable packaging more robust to keep products fresh without compromising its environmental benefits. A sheet-to-sheet system has been built with a large area/continuous roll to roll system currently under construction.
The SALD technology is based on Prof. Kevin Musselmen’s research at the University of Waterloo and the work completed by Teoh and Loke while graduate students. All three are co-inventors of the technology. With the help of Waterloo Commercialization Office (WatCo), patent protection has been filed (US Provisional Patent converted to a PCT patent application), in addition to strategic direction, guidance and mentorship provided to the team by Gary Brock, Director of Strategic Initiatives. Support since day one from Watco has been tremendous according to Toeh and Loke, “We come from an engineering background and the guidance from Gary and WatCo has helped with setting up the right foundation and commercialization plans that has guided us along the way to bringing the product to market.” Brock was also instrumental in securing NSERC I2I funding to help identify initial target markets and secure introductions to industry leaders/potential customers and coating system development and benchmarking of performance within these industry sectors.
Nfinite has taken advantage of the local and southern Ontario startup ecosystem. For example, the company has received support from Accelerator Centre (Phase One programming – TD Cleantech award), Ryerson University (Lab2Market award recipient), and most recently, Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), where they successfully completed the program and participated in the CDL final showcase event. NFinite is currently conducting feasibility testing with consumer-packaged-goods manufacturers and hope to see the results of their work in the coming years.