>
Aclara. Advanced Materials

Manufacturing

The material has been made at industrial scale.

Aclara's media has been spun on industrial electrospinning equipment, converted into finished masks, and measured on the line. That production record, and the process knowledge behind it, is a central part of what the company offers a partner or acquirer.

The journey

From laboratory bench to roll-to-roll production.

  • 2020–2021 · The laboratory

    Invented at GWU

    The photoreactive nanofiber media is invented at the George Washington University with UC Riverside, under NSF rapid-response sponsorship and Plum Spun, Inc. The company is founded to commercialize it and takes an exclusive worldwide license.

  • 2021–2022 · Process R&D

    Chemistry into fiber

    Plum funds and manages the process development to move the dye-loaded membrane from bench samples to industrial parameters (chemistry loading, spinning conditions, web handling) through trials with U.S. and European electrospinning firms.

  • August 2022 · Production

    ≈117,000 masks, one run

    A full industrial run at the manufacturing partner in Valencia, Spain: media spun at roll-to-roll scale, measured at 94–95% particulate filtration on the rolled goods, and converted into ≈117,000 finished masks.

  • 2023–2025 · Reshoring

    A U.S. manufacturing path

    The Spanish partner exits the electrospinning manufacturing business. Aclara identifies a New Jersey-based advanced-materials manufacturer to produce the media, and establishes a U.S. finished-mask manufacturing relationship with MI Technologies.

  • Today · Qualification

    Process transfer underway

    Process-transfer and R&D qualification are the current manufacturing phase, with a planned production ramp to follow. The process parameters, QC data, and supplier network from the 2022 run transfer with the company.

The 2022 production run

The run, on video.

Video 1. Roll-to-roll electrospinning during the August 2022 production run in Valencia, Spain.
Finished masks from Aclara U.S. production
Fig. 1. Finished masks from U.S. mask production.

Footage captured at the production site during the run.

Capabilities & what transfers

What a manufacturing partner or acquirer receives.

Process know-how

Qualified parameters

Spinning parameters, chemistry loading, and web-handling specs proven at industrial scale, plus the R&D record of how they were developed.

Quality data

Production measurements

Filtration and pressure-drop measurements taken on production rolled goods: the data that proves the material, made outside the lab, performs.

U.S. relationships

Media + finished goods

An identified New Jersey-based media manufacturer and a U.S. finished-mask manufacturer (MI Technologies), with qualification paths already opened.

Regulatory groundwork

Toward QSR

A quality-system workstream (QSR, 21 CFR 820) runs alongside the FDA program, building the manufacturing controls and records a regulated medical device requires. A partner building a compliant U.S. supply chain inherits groundwork that is already underway.

The material has been produced at industrial scale once, and the recipe travels. A strategic with its own electrospinning or filtration lines can qualify the media in-house. A partner without lines inherits an identified U.S. manufacturing path with the R&D phase already scoped.