Prof. Alvin Orbaek White

Dr. Alvin Orbaek White is an Associate Professor and former Sêr Cymru II Fellow at Swansea University. He recently arrived at the Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Mechanical Engineering. Before this, he earned a PhD in Chemistry from Rice University, specializing in the growth and application of carbon nanomaterials.

TrimTabs’ journey began when Dr. Orbaek White discovered nanotubes during his PhD in Aerospace Engineering and Technology at The Polytechnic University of Catalunya (UPC, Barcelona) in 2005. His passion for nanotubes led him to transfer his PhD to Rice University in Houston, Texas, where he conducted extensive research on nanotubes and led projects at the Richard E. Smalley Centre of Nanoscale Science and Technology. His thesis, "The Catalytic Growth of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes," focused on advanced production and synthesis techniques. At Rice, he published 17 scientific publications and one chemistry textbook and completed numerous projects for industry work groups, including the Advanced Energy Consortium (AEC) and Advanced Quantum Wire (AQW) projects.

In 2014, Dr. Orbaek White moved to MIT, where he taught Physics and researched novel approaches to carbon nanotube production. He developed a new method to produce CNTs of centimeter length. In 2016, he joined Swansea University in the UK, where he established the Power Distribution Materials Group in the Chemical Engineering department. His research at Swansea furthered the large-scale production of nanotubes for the energy sector. He became an editorial board member at the Journal of Carbon Research published by MDPI and guest-edited a 2017 issue on "Carbon-Based Materials for Electrical Power Transmission and Smart Grid Technologies." He filed several patents in 2018 and presented his technologies at the House of Parliament.

In 2019, after perfecting his carbon nanotube production approach, Dr. Orbaek White secured 100% ownership rights to the IP and formed TrimTabs Ltd. to commercialize this technology. The company closed €1m in seed financing in 2022 to develop nanotubes commercially and tailor the manufacturing of ultra-long CNTs for scale. He optimized the process for industrial application, including small industrial-scale production runs at the Biorenewable Development Centre facility at York University. Concurrently, R&D continued at Swansea University, where TrimTabs maintains a research agreement with the Energy Safety Research Institute. This research successfully demonstrated nanotube wires made from recycled materials as replacements for electrical, audio, and data cables. One notable project involved turning ostomy bags into Cat 5 network cables made entirely of carbon nanotubes.

From late 2022 to now, Dr. Orbaek White has opened several commercial supply discussions with various nanotube research institutes, companies, and off-takers. In 2022, he began recruiting the TrimTabs team to further his vision and resigned from his full-time position as Associate Professor to focus entirely on TrimTabs.