They told him it was “not possible”. He turned those words into a company name. Gadhadar Reddy’s journey from dreaming of Mars to building carbon nanotube technology is a story of persistence and deep-tech ambition.That childhood ambition eventually led him to a much more fundamental question: what kind of materials would be needed to make future space missions lighter, stronger and more efficient?The answer he began exploring was carbon nanotubes—microscopic structures made of carbon that have extraordinary mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. But when Reddy returned to India in 2011 to work on manufacturing them, the response, according to his own account, was blunt: it was “not possible”, especially in India.So he named his company NoPo Nanotechnologies—short for “Not Possible”.Fifteen years later, the Bengaluru company is scaling up production of single-walled carbon nanotubes, materials with potential applications in batteries, semiconductors, electronics, water treatment and advanced composites.
A Mars dream led to a materials problem
Reddy’s interest in space goes back to childhood. In an account published by Chevening, he said: “Ever since I was a child, my goal was to land up in Mars.”But getting humans to Mars requires far more than rockets.Spacecraft must carry structures and systems that are both extremely strong and as light as possible. That search led Reddy towards carbon nanotubes, particularly single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs).These are tiny cylindrical structures whose walls are just one carbon atom thick. Their unusual properties have made them a subject of scientific research for decades, but one of the biggest challenges has been manufacturing them consistently and at industrial scale.
The Nobel connection behind NoPo’s technology
In 2011, Reddy co-founded NoPo with Dr Robert Kelley Bradley.Bradley’s connection to the technology was unusual. According to NoPo, he was a PhD student at Rice University who worked under Nobel laureate Richard Smalley and helped build and refine early reactors based on the HiPCO—High-Pressure Carbon Monoxide—process for producing single-walled carbon nanotubes.NoPo says the technology was subsequently re-engineered and revived in Bengaluru, with the company focusing on making the process stable, repeatable and suitable for industrial-scale production.
What exactly is NoPo trying to make?
| The challenge | NoPo’s approach |
| Carbon nanotubes can vary in quality | Control the production process for greater consistency |
| Many advanced materials remain expensive | Develop a scalable continuous production process |
| India depends heavily on imported advanced materials | Manufacture high-purity SWCNTs domestically |
| EVs and batteries need better-performing materials | Develop specialised nanotubes for energy-storage applications |
| Future electronics need new materials | Supply SWCNTs for semiconductor and electronics research |
NoPo says it has been supplying high-quality single-walled carbon nanotubes since 2015 and now produces different grades for applications including batteries, electronics and biomedical research.
The next target: batteries and large-scale production
The company’s ambitions are now moving beyond laboratory-scale science.A recent report by EE Times said NoPo had inaugurated a pilot production line and was setting up a larger Bengaluru facility that the company says could become the world’s second-largest carbon nanotube production facility and the first of its kind in this part of Asia designed to directly supply battery manufacturing lines. The claim is the company’s and should be viewed in that context.NoPo has also received support from the Technology Development Board under the Department of Science and Technology for a feasibility study examining the use of its HiPCO single-walled carbon nanotubes in sodium-ion batteries. The project is intended to assess potential improvements in areas including electrical conductivity, energy density and battery cycle life.
From ‘not possible’ to a deep-tech bet
The most interesting part of NoPo’s story may be how long it took.This was not a startup built around an app that could be launched in months. The founders spent years working on a difficult manufacturing and materials-science problem: how to produce a highly specialised nanomaterial consistently enough for real-world applications.Today, India’s ambitions in EVs, batteries, semiconductors and space technology all depend, to varying degrees, on access to advanced materials.Companies like NoPo may not be household names because their products are not designed for consumers.You will not download a carbon nanotube.You may never see one.But the material could eventually find its way into the batteries, electronics and other technologies that power the products people use every day.For Gadhadar Reddy, however, the story began with a much bigger destination.He wanted to go to Mars.And when people said building the technology he needed in India was “not possible”, he turned those two words into the name of his company.Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available information, company disclosures and reports from the sources cited. Claims regarding production scale, performance and commercial applications are attributed to NoPo Nanotechnologies or other cited sources and have not all been independently verified by TOI Education.
