OSAUHING ANF DEVELOPMENT

ANF Development OU (NAFEN) is a company operating in Tallinn, Estonia, which has developed and patented the production process for a synthetic aluminium oxide nanofiber, which has been branded and trademarked as “NAFEN”.
It comprises a manufacturing facility for Nafen™ and Nafen™- based enhancers. It is a subsidiary of ANF Technology Ltd, which is a registered UK company.
ANF began with a pilot production facility for the synthesis of the nanofibers. The company has gone through a full development cycle to refine and secure the process and technology involved in the production of the NAFEN nanofibers. The technology has been developed to be scalable to industrial production levels and to be replicable in other locations to make the product logistically accessible to the customer base.
ANF is the first-ever producer of Nafen™ nanofibers in industrial volumes, with production costs comparable to that of traditional materials. Nafen™ is a new and unique Aluminum Oxide nanofiber with the potential to unlock innovation across a number of major industry sectors. Nafen™ provides a unique combination of properties including controllable diameter of 7 to 15 nm, polycrystal length of over 150 millimeters, high tensile strength, vast surface area, chemical inertness, stability against radiation, and thermal stability up to 1200 degrees Celsius. Currently, ANF has developed several applications for Nafen™ nanofiber that include Nafen™-enhanced thermoplastics and composite materials, catalysts, concrete and non-woven materials.
The company’s current focus is on the further development of the Nafen™ product line, customer relationships and sales and expansion of production capacity to an industrial sales level. The company now has a stable and scalable production process, which allows for rapid expansion of Nafen™ production by adding simple new equipment. The capacity expansion of the facility and laboratory has been considered in advance in order to be able to increase production in parallel with sales.
ANF has built up and maintains an active account list of more than 350 potential customers (150 of which are key customer accounts ranging from SMEs to global corporations) who have interest in the potential benefits that Nafen™ products can bring to their businesses. The customers’ manufacturing activities include industrial applications such as paints, adhesives, epoxy resins formulation, composite materials, engineering plastics, ceramics, concrete/cement, wind energy and electronics. ANF has provided many of these customers with material samples of the Nafen™ products for their own R&D testing. Performance results have confirmed Nafen™’s capabilities as a specialized performance enhancer.
ANF has recently established Joint Development Projects (JDP) with several of its key customer accounts. Under this JDP program, ANF Development OU works more directly with the customers’ R&D staff to create a specialized Nafen™ dispersion, specifically formulated for the customers’ product. This JDP program is impactful in bringing the first industrial sales for the company. The formulated Nafen™ product is made in a way that the customer will simply replace an existing formulation ingredient with a Nafen™ enhanced version of that same material. This will allow them to maintain their current production processes and still realize dynamic improvements in the end product
performance.
Customers currently involved with ANF in the JDP program include companies such as Henkel Corporation, Evonik, Hexion, Huntsman, Voith Paper among others. The objective of these JDP relationships is to develop a specific NAFEN dispersion product that can be sold to the customer as a formulation ingredient that will dynamically improve the performance of their existing and future products.
The company has gained the Acquisition International Magazine, 2013 Business Excellence Award—Estonian Product of the Year.

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ADDRESS

TOOSTUSE TN 48A
10416 - TALLINN
ESTONIA

Aleksei Tretjakov

Project Coordinator

MAIN ATTRIBUTE TASKS AND ROLE IN THE PROJECT

Involvement in WP3: Concept and development of UHDC

Participation in WP5: Quantification of UHDC improved long-term durability performance

Participation in WP7: Business opportunities of the UHDCs developed

Collaboration in WP8: Validation of proof of concept in real site durability conditions,

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