Published 06/11/2026

NAWAH opens first U.S. VACNT manufacturing facility in Ohio

The French deep-tech company's 38,000-square-foot plant will produce vertically aligned carbon nanotube interleaving film for composite applications in sports equipment, aviation and aerospace.

Edited by: Hannah Mason

Technical Editor, CompositesWorld

Edited by: Grace Stubbins

Senior Managing Editor, CompositesWorld and Products Finishing

NAWAH (Rousset, France), a manufacturer of vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) materials for the composites industry, has inaugurated its first North American manufacturing facility in Englewood, Ohio. The $10 million, 38,000-square-foot plant is expected to reach full commercial production of 400,000 square meters/year in summer 2026.

The company’s primary product, NAWAH-Stitch Film, is available in rolls of polymer films fully infused with VACNTs. These are shelf-stable and able to be applied directly to an epoxy-based prepreg during a typical layup process.

Starting in summer 2026, the Englewood site will be able to produce up to 400,000 square meters of NAWAH-Stitch Films per year on its first line, with plenty of room for future expansion. Source | NAWAH

The VACNTs can be placed at targeted locations within the composite layup to improve resistance to delamination, increase energy absorption, increase thermal or electrical conductivity, or to increase fatigue performance — providing multifunctionality to composites.

The patented industrial-scale technology traces its origins to research conducted at France’s CEA (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission) and MIT, along with further work from UDRI and NAWAH’s France-based R&D lab. NAWAH, formerly known as NAWA Technologies and which acquired the VACNT assets of N12 Technologies in 2020, developed the Englewood site in partnership with JobsOhio, the Dayton Development Coalition and the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI).

The facility location, near Dayton’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and network of Tier 1 aerospace suppliers, was chosen to serve customers across industries, including aerospace, defense, sports equipment and mobility/automotive. The company’s first commercialization target is premium sports equipment, and displays several examples of golf clubs, hockey sticks, baseball bats and hockey boots manufactured using its NAWA-Stitch Film at the facility. In parallel, NAWAH is engaged in qualification programs with aerospace manufacturers in Europe and North America.

At the inauguration ceremony on June 10, Kevin Retz, U.S. business manager, emphasized, “Here at NAWAH’s U.S. home in Dayton, Ohio, we’re taking VACNT technology and industrializing it. This is a game-changer for the composites industry, and it wouldn’t have been possible without all of our collaborations along the way.”

CEO Alain Guinot explained, “VACNTs have remarkable and proven benefits, especially for the most demanding applications — this is not just our claim, this is validated by others like MIT and UDRI. Others have also made them at small scale. Why have these materials not before now reached industrial scale? The industry has had three obstacles that we’ve overcome — mass production has been made possible using our fifth generation technology; our film product solves nanomaterial safety constraints and prepreg transport concerns; and the last, which is still not fully overcome, is gaining trust in the industry through our partnerships and customers. That’s what we’re continuing to work on now at this new site.”

NAWAH U.S. business manager Kevin Retz led a speaker lineup at the Englewood site’s inauguration ceremony. Source | CW

The company has hired 11 employees to date for the Englewood site and plans to grow to 20 by year-end 2026 and 50 by 2029. NAWAH is targeting operational profitability by 2028 and $30 million in revenue by 2030.

NAWAH is a subsidiary of ETSEM (France), a French industrial group.