Clorovale Diamante
With technology developed at the National Institute of Space
Research, company creates a dental drill that causes no pain

Evanildo da Silveira

Five thousand dentists in Brazil already use a new drill made of synthetic diamond that replaces in dental treatments rotating drills – those that make that awful high pitch sound that frightens so many people. The new equipment is the result of a program launched by the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (National Institute of Space Research, Inpe) called Diamantes e Materiais Relacionados (Diamonds and Related Materials, Dimare), directed to the development of, as the name says, artificial diamonds and related material to can be used, for example, as solid lubricants for satellite equipment. To produce synthetic diamonds in industrial scale, a group of six researchers and one technician in electronics from the Dimare founded, in 1998, Clorovale Diamante Indústria e Comércio, in São José dos Campos, in the interior of the State of São Paulo.

According to its owners, Clorovale is the first company in the world to master the technology for the new drill. The term actually isn’t appropriate to designate the tool. The word drill is generally used for the traditional drill, with its characteristic sound. The name Clorovale uses for its invention is dental tip.

The main innovation vis-a-vis traditional drills is that dental tips operate with the vibration of ultrasound waves. That makes a big difference both for cleaning and preparing the cavity for treatment. Because the tip doesn’t turn, it has less attrition and less impact on the tooth, which reduces pain. As a result, often there is no need for anesthesia. Besides, the tip doesn’t cut soft tissues, such as gums and blood vessels, thus reducing bleeding as well.

The awards the product has received are a recognition of its innovating characteristics. The first was the 1998 São Paulo State Governor Award (Prêmio Governador de São Paulo) for Best Invention, given by the São Paulo State government. In 2003 the tip got the Finep Technological Innovation Award (Prêmio Finep de Inovação Tecnológica), of the Brazilian Innovation Agency/Research and Projects Financing (Financiadora de Estudos Projetos, Finep), in the category Best Product in the Southeast Region, and an honorary mention at the national level. That same year the dental tip got the Top of Business, awarded by the organization of Canada’s Montreal International Events, for its worldwide impact. In addition, in April of 2004 the organizers of San Diego’s International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films recognized the dental tip as the event’s high added value applied product with the biggest technological and social impact.

Venture capital investments

Although Clorovale is headquartered in a vast, 6,000 sq. meter (64,583 sq. ft) lot, the physical space in which the diamonds and tips are manufactured is relatively small, using up no more than 400 sq. meters (4,305 sq. ft). But that’s about to change. Last year the company got investments of approximately US$ 1,25 million from a U.S. venture capital group, and current plans include an increase in the plant’s area and of its production. Changes are already underway. "We’re adjusting to the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency [Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária, Anvisa]’s Good Practices of Manufacturing requirements for odontological products", explains Patrick Hallqvist, Clorovale’s president. "That should be accomplished soon." The company also plans to expand the size of the staff, today comprised of 25 people: seven in the administration, five in production, research and R&D (including some of its partners) and 13 in sales.

Currently three of the company’s seven partners still work at Inpe and must dedicate their off hours to Clorovale. "The partners that conduct research work at the company after they complete their regular hours," guarantees Vladimir Airoldi, who is one of Clorovale’s partners and its technical director as well as Dimare’s coordinator. "It’s tough because each of them works more than 60 hours a week. Some of the researchers work up to 90 hours a week. But they believe in a new concept of technological development, of technology transfer and of society’s involvement with the projects."

The effort has been bringing good results: scientific articles produced at Inpe and ten patents, two of them international (in the U.S., Canada, Japan and Europe). Royalties are shared among Clorovale, Inpe and the State of São Paulo Research Foundation (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, Fapesp). "Ours is the first company to revert the flux of resources to the research fostering agency, that is, to Fapesp," says Airoldi. "We pay royalties because the agency is funding our patent, and so it gets 1/3 of them."

In the spotlight

In spite of the recognition the product has gotten and of the patents, sales have not been as good as its inventors expected. In 2006 were sold an average of 280 dental tips per moth, with total monthly sales of some US$ 16,000. "Turning an invention into an innovation that can actually reach the market is a tough process, one that requires much effort," justifies Hallqvist, the company’s president. "This effort has been carried out for years, but only now we’ve been able to catch the attention of opinion setters and of other companies that also want to distribute the product."

For that reason sales are expected to pick up in 2007. The company projects average monthly sales of 1,650 dental tips for this year, with total sales of US$ 99,000, a six-fold increase compared to 2006. "That’s because Clorovale finally has financial conditions for hiring a good sales team and investing in marketing," Hallqvist explains. "We’ll be happy if we finish this first year with average monthly sales of 1,000 dental tips. That would mean total sales of some US$ 60,000, because each unit is sold for US$ 60."

The company also intends to increase its participation in the external market, which up to now is almost non-existent. Clorovale’s exports began in 2005 with a small sale to Mexico, of US$ 20,000, but they have yet to increase. "Mexico repeated the order in 2006," tells Airoldi. "For Israel we made a US$ 25,000 trial sale in 2005. But we were unable to sell more because we still don’t have the Europeans certification, for which our application is currently being analyzed. We expect to start an effective work in exports in 2008."

PIPE’s importance

Although the largest amount of capital has been brought by the U.S. investors, theirs wasn’t the only capital invested in the company. First came funds from Fapesp’s PIPE (Programa Inovação Tecnlógica em Pequenas Empresas, or Technological Innovation in Small Businesses Program), phases I and II, of approximately US$ 225,000 in the current exchange rate, which made possible the company’s very creation and its early development. Clorovale invested that money in building equipment and an infra-structure for the production of synthetic diamonds in industrial scale.

The resources were also applied in paying services of sample characterization. "The area of characterizations is one of the most expensive and scarce in our country," says the technical director Airoldi. "PIPE’s funding was extremely important. Without it we would have been unable to start our business, and thus Clorovale would not exist today." In addition, later the company got US$ 75,000 more from Finep through a venture capital program.

Previously, however, there had been other investments from Inpe’s Dimare that helped the company take shape. According to Airoldi, Inpe’s research on synthetic diamonds began in 1992. "Since then there have been invested about US$ 1 million from four sources: Fapesp, CNPq [Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, or National Council for Scientific and Technological Development], Finep and the Ministry of Science and Technology," he says.

Inpe’s interest in the production of synthetic diamonds stems from the characteristics they have, which are very similar to those of the diamonds found in nature. Besides being the hardest material available, diamonds have a very low attrition coefficient (equivalent to teflon’s), which makes them self-lubricant. Their thermal conductivity is very high (about five times as copper’s), they are resistant to cosmic, nuclear and ultraviolet radiations, they are chemically inert (they don’t react with other elements), they are bio-compatible and they make excellent material for bone integration.

High potential for applications

Due to such characteristics synthetic diamonds have high potential for application in many technological areas. In the case of Inpe, for instance, researchers are looking for solid lubricants for space equipment, thin films to protect solar panels and other parts of satellites, and heat dispersers for high performance electronic circuits.

There are many techniques for obtaining synthetic diamonds. Their history begins in 1954, when for the first time they were produced from graphite, which, like diamonds, is made up of carbon atoms. They required, however, high pressure (above 60,000 atmospheres) and temperature of at least 2,000 kelvin (2,273.15 degrees Celsius). In that same year was also published the first research with indications that it was possible to obtain diamond from the gaseous form of a number of organic composites (that have carbon atoms), through chemical vapor deposition (CVD), with pressure below one atmosphere and temperature lower than 1,200 kelvin (1,473.15 degrees Celsius).

It’s that technique, which became widespread in the 1980s, that the researchers at Inpe and Clorovale use to produce their synthetic diamonds. In a reactor, methane reacts with hydrogen at about 2,000 degrees Celsius, forming the diamond molecules, which deposit, as a film or a thin pellicle, on a substrate or base. As the molecules deposit themselves the film becomes thicker, that is, the diamond grows in the format the base determines. The result is homogeneous diamonds, that propitiate better cutting edge and durability.

In the case of Clorovale, the base is a metal rod which, with the diamond grown and adhered to its tip, becomes the new tool the company developed. "Our team was the first in the world to obtain the diamond-CVD with thickness and durability characteristics and high adherence to the metal rod, and, especially, viable for industrial production in tiny surfaces for applications such as dental and medical tips," explains Airoldi. "Today we produce drills in the four formats dentists use most: conical, tronco-conical, cylindrical and spherical. Because they don’t turn, they may have different folds so that they fulfill the various odontological surgical needs, which is yet another advantage vis-a-vis high rotation drills."

Dentists approved

Dentists that use Clorovale’s dental tips approve the new tool. That’s the case of Rogério Ribas da Costa, a professor of scientific methodology in the Graduate courses of the Centro de Estudos, Treinamento e Aperfeiçoamento em Odontologia (Cetao), a private institution in São José dos Campos. "I’ve been using Clorovale’s diamond tip since 2003," he says. "The product has brought many improvements to the treatment. With it I’m able to prepare the tooth more efficiently so that it’s restored and recover the functions and the format it had lost because of the cavity. That’s something that with other drills, more common in dental offices, cannot be done."

Costa also mentions as a positive aspect the cutting precision made possible by the diamond tip, which preserves the healthy part of the tooth. "This new equipment also makes less noise and offers the dentist total visibility of the area being treated because only the diamond tip is in the operatory field," adds Costa. That happens because, unlike traditional drills, the tip doesn’t have a turbine, that cylindrical or round “head” to which is attached the tiny rod with the drill at the tip that stands on the dentist’s way.

Luiz Augusto Conrado is another dentist who uses the dental tip Clorovale has developed. But he has a closer and older connection to the product. A Master in biomedical engineering and a researcher at the Universidade do Vale do Paraíba (Paraíba River Valley University, Univap), of São José dos Campos, he helped develop it and tested it. "It was during the tests in the clinic that we found out that, unlike high rotation drills, the new drill caused no pain in 80% of the patients," he says. "We investigated the causes and found out that traditional drills, which turn at a speed of 300 rotations per minute, cause a suction of cells from the tooth’s pulp, where the nerves are located, and that produces the pain," he explains. "With Clorovale’s ultrasound’s that doesn’t happen."

In spite of the advantages the new tip is not a perfect product. Dentists and even the company point out some of its disadvantages. Among them the cutting speed, lower than the high rotation drills’. That means that it takes longer to clear and clean the area to be treated. Another disadvantage is the price, 40 times the traditional equipment’s. Airoldi assures, however, that those problems are really not so serious. For one, because the dental tip requires no anesthesia, which takes time to take effect, the time the patient spends in the dentist’s chair is practically the same as if the treatment were carried out with the traditional equipment. As for the price, it’s compensated by the tip’s durability, 30 times longer than the rotation drill’s.

According to Hallqvist, the qualities of the dental tip and the results the company has obtained have been attracting the attention of foreign investors. Clorovale was discovered by the U.S. venture capital group in an exploratory mission at a Finep event. "Foreign groups are keeping an eye on Brazilian start-up and innovation companies," he says. "All that’s needed is to be in the right place at the right time and to have a business model and plan that is adequate to the challenges that have to be faced. Today, besides the U.S. venture capital group, Clorovale has also got investments from Bionnovation, a company in the odontological business. Now the big challenge, in addition to investing in production, is to leverage the commercial structures in order to reduce costs and get profits as quick as possible.