A FORMER road building company based in a remote village cemented its reputation as a world leader in chemical technology yesterday.

The Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) has awarded grants totalling more than £4.3m to Thomas Swan, based in the former mining hamlet of Crookhall, near Consett, County Durham.

The company, which once rust-proofed the Statue of Liberty, will use the money to continue its pioneering nanotechnology work.

Managing director Dai Hayward said: "We have quietly been a world leader in a number of fields for several years.

"These grants will help us develop new strands of our business in what is a very interesting field."

In April, Thomas Swan became the first UK company capable of commercially producing carbon nanotubes.

They are large molecules of pure carbon that resemble rolled up sheets and are about 100,000-times thinner than a human hair.

They are nearly 100 times stronger than steel and are potentially the best conductors of heat and electricity yet discovered.

Companies are racing to use them in ultra-lightweight and extremely strong materials for the aerospace and defence industries, along with sports equipment such as tennis racquets and even car body panels.

Thomas Swan began as a rock crushing company in 1926. It moved into road building and became the first company to use steel slag as its primary material - taken from the steel works then operating at Consett.

It moved into chemical engineering to find a way to make the slag bind effectively with bitumen.

Since then, it has forged a reputation creating technology businesses, then selling them on and starting again.

Its coatings business once weatherproofed the inside of the Statue of Liberty.

More recently, it pioneered semi-conductor lasers that are used in everything from portable CD players to space exploration.

"We got a thank-you note from NASA a few years back, saying they had used our technology to find a new solar system," said Mr Hayward.

The company employs 160 people at the Crookhall site and sells products to 70 countries.

The DTI grants represent half the cost of two research projects. More than £2.9m will be spent at the Crookhall plant looking at nanocarbon fibres, while a further £1.4m will go on nanoelectronics production at its plant in Swainby, near Northallerton, in North Yorkshire.

The Government is giving a further £3m to INEX, a nanotechnology facility at the University of Newcastle.