Canatu brings great ideas to life

Ideas are the genesis of technologies that change the world. Essential to realizing those ideas, however, is having the innovation and individual contributions come together into tangible real-world applications.

Canatu is a nanotechnology company making transformative products that impact the world around us. Emma Salmi, who leads the company’s Synthesis team, is a chemist by training. She completed her master’s degree and PhD at the University of Helsinki, which is where she first got into nanotechnology. Her team focuses on the process of synthesizing carbon nanotubes, and on how to tailor that process for customer applications while ensuring the highest-quality material.

Salmi commends the core principle of collaboration at Canatu.

– The atmosphere of working together is really good. People help each other out to reach everyone’s goals. The amount of innovation and know-how is inspiring.

From theory to practice

As a very concretely minded person, Salmi especially appreciates seeing ideas being developed into actual products. She has an extensive background in academia, but academic work can be quite arbitrary. That’s what inspired her professional transition from academia to industry: becoming involved with turning all the innovation into actual usable products.

– What appeals to me is seeing the fruits of that labor and seeing what can be done with it.

The work at Canatu revolves around progress. Not just in the advancement of the various industries that make use of the company’s sophisticated nanotechnology, but also in the way that development takes place within the company. Planting the seed of progress starts with ideas that grow into breakthrough solutions.

According to Salmi, this is evident in the company’s daily reality, and the rate of innovation can be quite awe-inspiring to witness first-hand.

– It’s possible to see people early in the week and think that something is completely impossible, that we cannot do it. And then on Thursday, these amazing people come up with something that you were almost ready to write off.

Significant strides

Salmi remarks that the undeniable influence of Canatu’s products may not be apparent to people in everyday life. This is because Canatu’s products are themselves implemented into the final consumer products, such as those by the automotive industry, enabling unprecedented possibilities and new ways of doing things.

– Whatever we are putting out there is something you might see in your everyday life. You might not know about it, but you might still use it. It’s not an arbitrary thing somewhere in the lab, it’s present in your everyday life. That’s what Canatu is trying to achieve.

Salmi thinks Canatu is a great environment for people who are passionate about science and making an impact, for those who are interested in building up the solutions of tomorrow and are committed to making them happen.

– The best things at Canatu are the atmosphere and how amazing the people who have gathered here are. And being at the cutting edge of technology, it’s a motivator in itself.