DANBURY, Conn., Feb. 8, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ATMI, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATMI) announced today positive results from key development initiatives that are leading to commercialization opportunities for its BrightBlack™ brand of precision carbon adsorbents. Lab and field test programs conducted over the past three years demonstrated a number of clean technology applications, including advanced adsorbents to enable CO2 capture, renewable energy sources, and thermally-driven heating and cooling devices. Funding for applications development programs has come from ATMI, as well as public sources, including research contracts with the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, and from privately funded co-development with industrial partners.
"We are confident that our BrightBlack precision carbon will maintain the same high level of performance in new systems as it does in our market-leading SDS® gas cylinder delivery systems," noted ATMI's Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Larry Dubois. "The outstanding performance of these materials is predicated on our ability to deliver and test our carbon in various form factors — from microns to centimeters — and to customize or tune it at the sub-nanometer level for very precise process conditions."
ATMI is now pursuing efforts with development partners that will enable new commercial offerings using BrightBlack precision carbons. In addition, ATMI is expanding its investigative efforts beyond specialty adsorbent uses to explore potential applications of these highly microporous materials as electrodes in energy storage applications.
ATMI's BrightBlack carbon adsorbents were first used in the company's Safe Delivery Source® — SDS — gas cylinder delivery system. By using the carbon to adsorb highly toxic and dangerous gases used to manufacture computer chips, thereby enabling a sub-atmospheric, negative pressure system, ATMI helped companies avoid catastrophic events caused from human error or compromised high-pressure cylinders. This technology dramatically reduced the risk of using these gases, and SDS quickly became the standard gas package for shipping, storing, and delivering dangerous gases into semiconductor manufacturing processes.
Over the last 8 years, ATMI has produced nearly 50 metric tons of its microporous carbon adsorbents. Adsorption is the process of reversible binding of a molecule to a surface or interface as a dense layer. For more information on BrightBlack™ carbon adsorbents, please visit www.atmi-brightblack.com.
About ATMI
ATMI, Inc. provides specialty semiconductor materials, and safe, high-purity materials handling and delivery solutions designed to increase process efficiencies for the worldwide semiconductor, flat panel, and life sciences industries. For more information, please visit http://www.atmi.com.
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ATMI, the ATMI logo, BrightBlack, Safe Delivery Source, and SDS are trademarks, or registered trademarks, of Advanced Technology Materials, Inc., in the United States, other countries, or both.
Statements contained herein that relate to ATMI's future performance, including, without limitation, statements with respect to ATMI's anticipated results of operations or level of business for 2012 or any other future period, are forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on current expectations only and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including, but not limited to, changes in semiconductor industry growth (including, without limitation, wafer starts) or ATMI's markets; competition, problems, or delays developing, commercializing, and delivering new products; customer-driven pricing pressure; potential loss of key customers; problems or delays in integrating acquired operations and businesses; uncertainty in the credit and financial markets; ability to protect ATMI's proprietary technology; and other factors described in ATMI's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010 and other subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements. ATMI undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.