Endeavor Composites is based in East Tennessee, but the startup’s name originates from something a little more out of this world: the space shuttle Endeavour.
“The name kept chasing me,” explained Hicham Ghossein (PhD/ME, ’18), the company’s founder and CEO. After touring the processing bay where Endeavour was housed as a student in 2011 and receiving countless signs about his future undertakings, Ghossein knew what he should name his start-up. “The name means a lot to me, especially since my end goal is to make highend advanced composites for aerospace applications.”
Endeavor Composites has developed an innovative mixer system that can disperse long carbon fibers—an inch to an inch and a half—in water, producing defect-free nonwoven mats for use in fiber-reinforced composites manufacturing and meeting a challenge that researchers have been attempting to solve for decades. The technology offers numerous advantages over current fiber dispersion techniques and meets a critical need to prevent the waste of scrap and recycled fibers caused by rise in demand for carbon fibers in the composites industry. The technology also addresses the automotive industry’s current emphasis on using lightweight materials to increase fuel efficiency, which has larger future implications for the marine industry and aerospace interiors.
Ghossein, a first-generation college student from Lebanon, came to the US intending to continue his graduate education in applied physics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His career ambitions changed, however, once he took a course about the mechanics of composites with then UAB professor Uday Vaidya, who is now the UT–Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair for Advanced Composites Manufacturing, director of the Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility, and chief technology officer at IACMI—The Composites Institute. The course fascinated Ghossein. He realized that his true calling was composites and switched his PhD track.
As scientists and engineers, we want to see our ideas grow and mature. No one wants to discover something and see it put on a library shelf.”
Later, when Vaidya moved to UT, Ghossein followed and completed his doctorate here. He credits Vaidya with encouraging him to pursue his doctoral research in nonwoven carbon fiber fabric dispersion techniques—a move that led him to form Endeavor Composites around the innovative fiber mixing technique he developed along with Vaidya and Lonnie Love, a Distinguished Research Scientist in ORNL’s Energy and Transportation Science Division and leader of the Manufacturing Systems Research Group.
After filing an invention disclosure on the technology, Ghossein worked with the UT Research Foundation to file a patent application and execute a license to his company. He expressed appreciation for UTRF’s support during the entire process, remarking that the team was very helpful and flexible.
“One of the biggest values from working with UTRF is that they are truly working toward helping us succeed. The process is not easy, but UTRF helped tremendously,” he said.
Ghossein worked briefly in industry before returning to East Tennessee to fully commit himself to his company and move his technology closer to market readiness. He joined ORNL’s Innovation Crossroads program, where he outlined two goals: to build a scaled-up machine to process the fabric beyond the current lab-scale production and to create a database to validate that he had a viable working product.
“As scientists and engineers, we want to see our ideas grow and mature,” he explained. “No one wants to discover something and see it put on a library shelf. Being in an ecosystem with organizations and programs like UTRF, IACMI, and Innovation Crossroads that help you see your work become significant is a huge value for us.”
Fortunately, these researchers are not alone in their desire to advance technologies to market. “UTRF is committed to helping burgeoning entrepreneurs like Hicham advance their innovations,” said UTRF Vice President Kusum Rathore. “We look forward to seeing Hicham’s technology and Endeavor Composites grow through his time in Innovation Crossroads and beyond.”