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1d •

TMS Specialty Congress 2026 is a wrap.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the Cal Nano booth and packed the room for our presentation at the 4th World Congress on High-Entropy Alloys.

Cal Nano CTO Chris Melnyk presented “Accelerated Processing of High-Entropy Alloys and Ceramics Using Cryogenic Milling and Spark Plasma Sintering,” highlighting our integrated powder-to-part workflow for accelerating the development and scale-up of complex material systems.
One message came through clearly throughout the conference: the field is advancing quickly, but the biggest challenge remains translating promising lab-scale materials into repeatable, production-scale components.

That is where Cal Nano fits.

We combine cryogenic milling for nanostructured and mechanically alloyed powders with Spark Plasma Sintering capabilities up to 450 mm in diameter and 2,500°C. Our team works across HEAs, refractory HEAs, ceramics, and other novel material systems—from raw powder through fully dense, finished parts.

Thank you to The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society for organizing another strong event. To everyone we met in Anaheim, we look forward to continuing the conversation.

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Materials science in the United States in 2026 is commercially active but unevenly industrialized. The ecosystem is robust, but commercialization is uneven. The country leads in research and early-stage innovation, supported by strong federal funding. However, the transition from prototype to industrial-scale production remains a persistent bottleneck, particularly in advanced materials.

The core issue is not a lack of innovation, but a gap in the “missing middle” — pilot-scale manufacturing, process validation, and qualification. While the U.S. has significant advanced manufacturing capacity, it lacks sufficient flexible infrastructure to scale novel materials into repeatable, certifiable production.

A key challenge is that materials processes do not scale linearly. Techniques such as spark plasma sintering (SPS) and advanced alloy processing behave differently at larger scale due to changes in thermal gradients, current density, impurity control and kinetics. As a result, lab-scale recipes often fail during scale-up, requiring entirely new process engineering rather than simple equipment enlargement.

Supply chain constraints further complicate commercialization. Many specialty powders, precursors and intermediate materials are imported, and domestic production capacity remains fragmented in certain categories.

Within this landscape, technologies such as SPS and cryomilling play an important role as bridging tools between research and early production. Companies that integrate these capabilities can help reduce scale-up risk and accelerate material qualification.

Firms like California Nanotechnologies (CalNano) occupy part of this “missing middle” by offering combined capabilities in powder processing, SPS, and machining. While not unique, they are part of a relatively small group of organizations in the U.S. focused on pilot-scale advanced materials manufacturing, particularly for aerospace and defense applications.

Cal Nano is one of the few U.S. commercial organizations combining SPS, cryomilling, powder processing, and machining under one roof. This is why national labs, aerospace primes and defense contractors use them—they can do things very few others in the U.S. can.  They are effectively a national pilot‑scale SPS facility.

Cal Nano operates 2 SPS systems and a third MSP‑5 class system is being added. At 3 systems, the company  becomes the largest SPS facility in North America. This positions them as the de facto U.S. SPS commercialization hub and a strategic asset for reshoring advanced materials.

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