TiPlate, by Polymertal

Industrial Titanium-Plating Process for the Manufacturing of Light-Weight Composite Parts

Founded in Israel in 2007 and with a multi-disciplinary team of 18 employees, offers specialized chemical surface etching technologies that enable superior metal plating of polymers. They have created a proprietary surface etching method that can produce hybrid metal-polymer components of complex geometries, using novel 3D printing techniques and metal post-treatment via a highly cost- and time-efficient industrial manufacturing process.

Because of its strength-to-density ratio, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility, titanium is highly useful for lightweight, high-strength applications (e.g. aerospace), for medical implant materials and devices and use in harsh environments (e.g. industrial). However, it cannot be cast like aluminium or iron, and it is more expensive due to its laborious and energy-intensive extraction, so final costs of titanium-based parts often outweigh the benefits.

To overcome this, our client, the Isareli company Polymertal, has developed a novel, titanium plating process called TiPlate, which allows them to manufacture lightweight, high performance, corrosion-resistant, biocompatible titanium-plated polymer components and final parts. Compared to titanium metal parts, TiPlate significantly reduces the titanium required, saving 70+% of costs and 60% of weight, while strengthening the pure polymer parts by 30-50%.

Polymertal applied to the March, 2020 call of the EIC Accelerator in order to obtain support for process optimization and upscaling of their innovation, with the goal of being able to offer the medical and aerospace industries a cost-effective alternative to the expensive options that are available currently. From Aristos, we proudly announce that they obtained the blended finance they requested, consisting of €1.85M grant and €3.5M equity.

We are very pleased to have been part of the success of Polymertal and we wish them the best of luck in the development of their wonderful project.