NoPo Nanotechnologies: Bengaluru Deep-Tech Company Building India’s Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube

India’s next manufacturing opportunity may not always involve large factories producing machines that can be seen from a distance. Some of the most strategically important products of the coming decades will instead be manufactured at scales measured in nanometres.

Bengaluru-based NoPo Nanotechnologies is working in precisely this field. The company develops and manufactures single-walled carbon nanotubes, or SWCNTs, an advanced carbon material with potential applications across batteries, semiconductors, water purification, aerospace systems, electronics, composites and specialised coatings.

Founded in 2011, NoPo has spent more than a decade developing the technology required to manufacture SWCNTs with consistent properties. The company says it has now established industrial-scale production of small-diameter nanotubes and supplies material for industries including EV batteries, electronics, semiconductors and healthcare.

The importance of the achievement lies not simply in producing carbon nanotubes. The difficult part is producing them repeatedly, purifying them and tailoring their electrical and physical characteristics so manufacturers can integrate them into real products.

That is the manufacturing problem NoPo is attempting to solve from India.

What Are Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes?

A single-walled carbon nanotube can be understood as an extremely thin cylindrical structure made from carbon atoms. Its wall consists of a single atomic layer.

At this scale, carbon behaves in unusual ways. Depending on the nanotube’s diameter and atomic arrangement, known as chirality, the material can behave as a metallic conductor or as a semiconductor.

SWCNTs can therefore combine extremely low weight with excellent electrical, thermal and mechanical properties. These characteristics have made carbon nanotubes an important research material for decades.

The challenge has been manufacturing them consistently and economically.

Small variations in diameter, contamination, catalyst residues or atomic structure can significantly change their performance. A material that works brilliantly in a research laboratory is not necessarily useful to a battery or semiconductor manufacturer unless the supplier can reproduce the same characteristics from one production run to another.

NoPo has concentrated much of its engineering effort on solving this repeatability problem.

HiPCO Technology at the Centre of NoPo’s Manufacturing Platform

NoPo manufactures its nanotubes using the High-Pressure Carbon Monoxide process, better known as HiPCO.

The technique traces its origins to work involving Dr Robert Kelley Bradley and Nobel laureate Richard Smalley. Bradley later became associated with NoPo as a co-founder and adviser on HiPCO technology.

Unlike many conventional chemical vapour deposition processes, NoPo’s system operates under high temperature and pressure. Carbon-containing gas and catalyst precursors enter the reactor, where carbon atoms assemble around tiny catalyst particles and grow into nanotubes.

The company describes its manufacturing platform as a gas-phase, substrate-free continuous process. Its reactors can operate continuously for extended periods rather than producing nanotubes only through isolated batches. NoPo says individual runs can continue for as long as 72 hours.

Continuous manufacturing is particularly important for industrial applications because it provides a path toward higher production volumes while maintaining more consistent material properties.

NoPo has also developed process controls covering more than 200 parameters that influence nanotube growth, according to CEO Gadhadar Reddy.

The company’s nanotubes have an average diameter of around 0.8 nanometres, with approximately 0.2 nm variation. This small diameter is especially valuable for applications where electronic behaviour depends strongly on nanotube dimensions.

Purification Is Almost as Important as Production

Producing nanotubes is only one part of the process.

Catalyst particles used during manufacturing can remain mixed with the finished material. For applications such as batteries, healthcare and electronics, these metallic impurities can become a serious problem.

NoPo therefore developed its own purification technology.

The company says its proprietary process can remove around 99% of catalyst particles, allowing it to produce highly purified SWCNT material for demanding applications. Its product portfolio offers different purity grades, depending on the intended use.

NoPo also produces semiconducting, metallic and chirality-selected nanotubes.

This capability becomes particularly important for future electronics. Two nanotubes that look almost identical physically can display completely different electrical characteristics because of their atomic arrangement.

Separating them therefore turns carbon nanotubes from a general nanomaterial into a much more precisely engineered electronic material.

Building the Manufacturing Equipment in India

Perhaps the strongest Make in India element in NoPo’s story is not confined to the nanotubes themselves.

The company has also worked to localise much of the equipment and infrastructure required to manufacture them.

Reddy told EE Times in 2026 that around 90% of NoPo’s production inputs and equipment are sourced or manufactured in India. These include pressure vessels, heating systems, reactor components, filter assemblies and catalysts.

When suitable gas compressors became difficult to obtain during the COVID-era supply disruptions, the company even developed its own compressors.

This level of localisation is significant.

Advanced-material manufacturing often depends on specialised reactors, purification equipment, sensors, pressure systems and process-control technologies imported from a small number of international suppliers.

Developing these capabilities domestically creates engineering knowledge that can spread beyond a single product.

NoPo’s Bengaluru R&D facility covers roughly 16,000 square feet and contains reactor clusters, purification systems, monitoring equipment, dispersion-processing systems and material-characterisation infrastructure.

SWCNTs Could Strengthen Next-Generation Batteries

Energy storage has emerged as one of NoPo’s most immediate commercial opportunities.

Modern batteries use conductive additives to move electrons efficiently through electrode materials. Conventional carbon black can perform this function, but highly conductive carbon nanotubes may achieve similar or better results at much lower concentrations.

NoPo says very small quantities of its SWCNT material can create conductive networks throughout battery electrodes. Its battery-grade nanotubes undergo additional purification to remove metallic contamination and can be supplied as dispersions suitable for incorporation into electrode manufacturing processes.

The technology could become particularly relevant as battery manufacturers increase the amount of silicon used in anodes.

Silicon can store substantially more lithium than conventional graphite, but it expands and contracts dramatically during charging and discharging. That movement can damage the electrode and reduce battery life.

SWCNT networks can help maintain electrical connectivity as the silicon changes volume.

NoPo is supplying nanotube dispersions for evaluation in these types of battery systems. The company sees potential improvements in charging performance, capacity and cycle life.

Government-Backed Sodium-Ion Battery Programme

NoPo’s battery work has also entered an Indian government-supported research programme.

In December 2025, the Technology Development Board under the Department of Science and Technology announced support for a feasibility study integrating NoPo’s HiPCO SWCNTs into sodium-ion batteries.

The project is supported through the India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund, or I4F.

Researchers will evaluate parameters including conductivity, energy density, reversible capacity, cycle life, charging performance and corrosion resistance while comparing NoPo’s material with commercially available SWCNT alternatives.

Sodium-ion batteries could become an important complement to lithium-ion technology for stationary storage and other applications because sodium is widely available.

For India, developing the battery chemistry and the advanced materials used inside it would deepen localisation beyond simply assembling imported cells.

Turning Nanotubes Into Water-Filtration Membranes

Another major NoPo programme involves water purification.

Carbon nanotubes possess an unusual characteristic: water can move extremely rapidly through their smooth internal channels.

NoPo is attempting to turn that property into practical filtration membranes.

Its HiPCO membranes embed nanotubes into engineered structures that imitate some aspects of biological water channels. The objective is to allow water molecules to move efficiently while blocking salts and contaminants.

This technology could eventually have applications in drinking-water purification, wastewater treatment and desalination.

The work has gained international recognition. NoPo’s Nanoflux team became one of the semifinalists in Track B of the 2026 XPRIZE Water Scarcity competition, which focuses on novel materials and methods for desalination. XPRIZE selected 17 Track B semifinalists from a much larger international field.

NoPo has reported membrane performance exceeding conventional reverse-osmosis benchmarks in its testing, although the technology remains in the pre-commercial pilot stage and will require further validation and scale-up before widespread deployment.

Carbon Nanotubes for Future Electronics

SWCNTs also represent one possible path beyond conventional silicon transistor scaling.

Depending on their chirality, individual nanotubes can behave as semiconductors with extremely small dimensions.

NoPo separates its nanotubes according to diameter and electronic characteristics and supplies enriched material for semiconductor research. The company also produces metallic and semiconducting SWCNT variants, along with small quantities of single-chirality nanotubes.

Carbon-nanotube transistors remain primarily an advanced research and development field rather than a replacement for today’s mass-produced silicon chips.

However, the potential is important for India.

A domestic company capable of supplying precisely characterised nanotubes gives Indian researchers and manufacturers access to one of the materials being investigated for post-silicon electronics.

NoPo told EE Times that material from the company is already under evaluation by a leading Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer, although the relationship remains at the R&D stage.

Superblack Coatings for Space and Optical Systems

Carbon nanotubes also possess useful optical properties.

Dense nanotube structures can absorb an extremely high percentage of incident light, producing surfaces that appear exceptionally black.

Earlier material published through India’s Innovations for Defence Excellence ecosystem described NoPo’s development of a Superblack Optical Coating for spacecraft, intended to improve the performance of star trackers and other optical components.

Stray light can degrade the accuracy of sensitive optical instruments. Highly absorptive coatings can therefore become useful inside telescopes, cameras, satellite sensors and scientific instruments.

The same underlying nanotube technology can potentially support aerospace composites, sensors and other specialised defence applications.

This illustrates one of the unusual characteristics of advanced materials: the same manufacturing platform can serve industries that otherwise appear completely unrelated.

From Nanotube Powder to Ready-to-Use Industrial Material

Simply manufacturing nanotubes does not guarantee that customers can use them.

Nanotubes tend to clump together, making uniform mixing difficult. NoPo has therefore invested in dispersion technology that allows customers to incorporate SWCNTs directly into battery slurries, polymers and other formulations.

Rather than concentrating only on raw nanotube powder, the company is increasingly supplying application-ready dispersions after purification and processing.

This approach moves NoPo further down the materials value chain.

Instead of becoming merely a commodity supplier, it allows the company to develop specific formulations for batteries, polymers, electronics and coatings.

That can also create deeper relationships with manufacturers because the nanotube supplier becomes involved in solving the customer’s materials-engineering problems.

NoPo Begins Its Next Manufacturing Scale-Up

NoPo is now attempting to move from specialised production toward significantly larger manufacturing volumes.

A June 2026 report by EE Times said the company had inaugurated a pilot production line and was preparing a larger manufacturing plant in Bengaluru aimed particularly at supplying battery production lines.

The company described the planned facility as potentially one of the world’s largest SWCNT manufacturing plants and a major facility for the Asian market. That claim will ultimately depend on the scale achieved once the plant enters operation.

The distinction is important.

Many Indian deep-tech companies have demonstrated impressive technologies in laboratories. Far fewer have successfully crossed the difficult gap between research-scale production and reliable industrial manufacturing.

For NoPo, that transition will determine whether its carbon nanotube technology becomes primarily a specialised scientific product or the foundation of a significant advanced-materials business.

Building an Indian Advanced-Materials Supply Chain

India’s manufacturing ambitions increasingly depend on controlling materials as well as finished products.

Electric vehicles need sophisticated battery materials. Semiconductor manufacturing requires ultra-pure chemicals and nanoscale materials. Satellites depend on advanced coatings and composites. Water systems require increasingly efficient membranes.

If these materials come almost entirely from overseas, domestic manufacturing remains dependent on external supply chains even when final assembly takes place in India.

NoPo represents a different model.

The company began with fundamental materials science, developed its own reactor and purification technologies, localised much of the production infrastructure and is now building application-specific products around the same SWCNT platform.

That progression—from scientific research to process engineering, industrial equipment, material production and finally application development—is exactly the kind of value-chain depth that India’s advanced manufacturing ecosystem needs.

From the Silicon Age to the Carbon Age

Carbon nanotubes have spent decades among the most promising materials in scientific research. Their extraordinary properties have never been the main obstacle.

Manufacturing has been.

Producing large quantities with controlled dimensions, removing catalysts, separating different nanotube types and converting the resulting material into something factories can actually use remain difficult engineering problems.

NoPo Nanotechnologies is attempting to solve those problems in Bengaluru.

Its HiPCO reactors are producing small-diameter single-walled carbon nanotubes. Its purification technology is targeting battery and electronics-grade material. Its dispersions are being developed for next-generation batteries and polymers. Its nanotubes are being tested for semiconductor applications, while the same underlying material is being engineered into water-filtration membranes and specialised optical coatings.

The company still faces the challenge that confronts nearly every advanced-material startup: scaling production while maintaining consistency and bringing emerging applications from qualification into sustained commercial orders.

Yet that is also what makes NoPo an important part of India’s Make in India story.

The company is not merely assembling an established foreign technology. It is trying to build a domestic manufacturing capability in one of the world’s most technically demanding classes of advanced materials.

India intends to become a serious manufacturing centre for batteries, semiconductors, space systems, advanced electronics and clean technologies, companies capable of mastering materials at the atomic scale will form an increasingly important part of that industrial foundation.

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