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History of the company
In 1997, Dr. Carl Nesbitt and Dr. Xiaowei Sun created Reticle CarbonŠ, a revolutionary new
monolithic carbon material that has ultra high surface area, high conductivity, and other unique
properties. Reticle CarbonŠ exhibits extremely high surface area--2000 m2/g--as compared
with previous "best in class" materials of 400 m2/g (aerogel carbons). Importantly, Reticle
CarbonŠ is manufactured at a fraction of the cost of the much inferior high surface carbon
materials presently in the marketplace ($10/kg for Reticle CarbonŠ as compared with
$150/kg for aerogel carbons). Furthermore, Reticle CarbonŠ electrode material, which is
fabricated in the form of monolithic blocks, exhibits superior conductive properties and is very
easy to machine and install in commercially available equipment.
Since the initial discovery, Dr. Carl Nesbitt, Dr. Sun, and Dr. Dale Nesbitt have diligently worked
to optimize the properties of the Reticle CarbonŠ material while at the same time protecting the
intellectual property rights of their technology via national and international patents,
confidentiality agreements, and other measures. On February 26, 2002, Reticle Inc. was issued
United States patent number 6,350,520, and there are more patents in process by the United
States and international patent offices (e.g., Europe, Japan, China, UAE, Canada, Australia, and
elsewhere). The patents that have already been issued and that will issue are comprehensive,
covering Reticle CarbonŠ structure, precursors, manufacturing processes, applications, and
salient attributes.
Reticle Inc. has identified two initial applications in which Reticle CarbonŠ will have high
profitability and high commercial and technical impact. The first is water purification. Water
purification applications range from deionizing salt-laden seawater or brackish water in which
total dissolved solids (TDS) can be as high as 40,000 parts per million to minewater,
groundwater, surface water, or drinking water remediation in which a pernicious ion such as
arsenic or selenium, whose concentrations can be as low as 10-50 parts per billion, must be
removed to avoid health consequences. A second class of initial application of Reticle CarbonŠ
is supercapacitors--capacitors with very high capacitance per unit volume or per unit mass.
The ultra high surface area of Reticle CarbonŠ enables small devices with colossally high
capacitance, a capability that has been sought since the days of Michael Faraday.
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