The story of copper as an additive is a good one. The story of how a startup took that technology from the pages of Soviet-era tribology papers and turned it into company that makes finished lubricants is even better.
Leyla Alieva, CEO of Neol Copper technologies, talks to Trevor Gauntlett about her company’s journey to this point. An encounter between her car enthusiast husband and a tribologist engaged in arcane research into copper as an antiwear additive led to starting a company in the Far East and transplanting it in the West in a search for investors.
Leyla also describes the obstacles, as well as the unexpected benefits, of trying to pitch this little-understood technology in the U.K., where venture capitalists have failed to recognize the product’s potential. But the lubricant – and trucking! – communities have been supportive.
Will copper be the new ZDDP? Come back in a couple of years, says Leyla.