Benton H Wilcoxon is an accomplished American entrepreneur with a world-class talent for integrating new material technologies into revolutionary products. He has founded upwards of 10 companies to commercialize new products, most notably Ashurst Technology Ltd (Ashurst) and Composite Technology Corporation (CTC). Currently, his latest advanced materials technology company is NextMetals Ltd.
Benton is the CEO of NextMetals Ltd., a Gibraltar company with R&D and production operations in Ukraine.
NextMetals
has developed proprietary metals and ceramics suitable for the following applications:
- Nano-structured titanium with the highest impact toughness and very high strength with very low corrosion – in testing for use in aircraft and aerospace, turbine engines, subsea equipment and systems, light-weight armor, oil and gas industry, and medical applications.
- Nano-structured steel with very high wear resistance and very high impact toughness, in testing for use in mine milling equipment, earth moving equipment, armor systems, etc.
- Next generation Aluminum Scandium alloys made with proprietary processes to achieve the highest strength with high elongation, in testing for use in intake turbine blades, aircraft, aerospace, high performance vehicles, and sports racing equipment.
- Nano-structured Ceramics with ultra-high impact toughness, in testing for ceramic brakes, armor systems, etc.
- Lubricating Ceramics for use as seals in critical pump systems in nuclear power plants.
NextMetals has access to the highest performance ultracapacitor technology which has been tested in the USA against other top ultracapacitors, where it was determined to be the most powerful ultracapacitor, as well as having the lowest internal resistance. A hybrid Lithium Ion Capacitor has been developed which has very low internal resistance enabling fast charging/discharging and has already achieved over 40,000 cycles at 100% depth of discharge and still retaining over 92% of original capacity. It operates from -35C to +65C and has 55 Wh/kg of specific energy with very high-power capability with high safety since there is no thermal runaway with the standard nail penetration test.
NextMetals is considering setting up an automated production of those two products to fill demands for power systems for powerful laser systems as well as systems for utility scale energy storage and powerline frequency modulation with surge protection, buses, trucks, forklifts. Versions for high temperature operation have also been developed for use in such applications as down-hole power systems.