Why Galvorn®
A conductor that’s light, strong, and flexible
Galvorn is an advanced carbon material for designs where weight, strength, and flexibility decide the outcome, from wire and cable to composites to advanced textiles. DexMat ships it from Houston, Texas today.
The problem
Every conductor asks you to give something up
Engineers have long designed around trade-offs. Metals that conduct well are heavy, materials that are strong tend to be stiff, and a conductor that flexes all day eventually fatigues. Galvorn mitigates those trade-offs: it is a lightweight advanced carbon material that conducts electricity, carries load, and bends easily, so a design gives up less of one property to gain another.
Galvorn at a glance
Six properties, measured against the metals engineers design with today. The figures describe Galvorn fiber, and each product’s data sheet carries the specification for its grade and form.
Electrical conductivity and current
About 3x the current of copper, weight for weight
In a harness, the wire that matters is the one you have to carry. In customer testing, Galvorn carried about 3x as much current as copper, weight for weight. Across the ten Galvorn constructions tested, the range was 1.4x to 6.2x per gram, calculated from the customer’s measured currents and Galvorn product specifications. On conductivity itself, Galvorn fiber is 97% as electrically conductive as copper, weight for weight (6,150 vs 6,300 S·m²/kg). Copper is more conductive by volume (58 vs 10 MS/m) and carries more current size for size, but many applications prefer to trade some of that conductivity for less mass, more strength, better flexibility, or a mix of them.
Lighter
Lighter than copper, steel, and aluminum
Mass costs fuel, range, and payload in anything that moves or flies. Galvorn single-filament fiber is about 80% less dense than copper (1.6 vs 9.0 g/cm³) or steel (1.6 vs 8 g/cm³) and about 40% less dense than aluminum (1.6 vs 2.7 g/cm³). Against high-end carbon fiber, Galvorn fiber is about 24% lighter for the same volume (1.6 vs 2.1 g/cm³).
Strength
Stronger than copper and steel, per unit mass
Strength per unit mass sets how thin and light a part can be. Galvorn fiber has a tenacity of 2.00 N/tex, against 0.04 for copper and 0.13 for steel, and a tensile strength of 3.0 GPa. It also keeps its strength where parts get stressed: in DexMat testing, an overhand knot left Galvorn fiber with 70% of its tensile strength, while carbon fiber bundles from a 24K tow kept 1.5% to 3%. In a 2022 study in Materials & Design, single Galvorn fibers under blade loading absorbed more than 2.4x the energy per unit mass of the other fibers tested, including Kevlar, Dyneema, and fiberglass.
Flexible
1,000x the flex life of copper
Cables, harnesses, and wearables flex all day. In bending fatigue tests at Rice University, a fiber of this material survived more than a billion bending cycles without breaking, and copper wire in the same test rig failed before one million. In tested cables shielded with Galvorn tape, there was also no measurable loss in shielding performance (insertion loss and shielding effectiveness) after 1,000 flex cycles at a 0.83 cm bend radius.
Thermal conductivity
Directs heat where you want it
Thermal design is often about steering heat toward a heat sink and away from everything else. In a published study of annealed film produced by DexMat, heat conducted about 1,400 times better along the film’s alignment than through its thickness (about 270 vs 0.19 W/m-K), which the researchers report as the highest thermal anisotropy ratio measured at room temperature for any material class. A single Galvorn filament conducts heat at 450 W/m-K, about 17% higher than copper’s 385 W/m-K.
Environmental durability
Holds up in salt fog and flame
Wire on aircraft, vehicles, and outdoor equipment sees salt, moisture, and heat. Galvorn itself does not rust or pit, it does not melt, and it resists flame. The yarns were aged at an independent lab and measured by DexMat, with one sample per condition. ETFE-insulated yarn kept 96 to 97% of its original break force after salt fog, UV, and thermal cycling, compared with an earlier baseline. Bare yarn, which has no insulation, kept 90 to 107% of its original break force after 500 hours of salt fog. As-spun yarn, which has had no post-processing such as baking or annealing, kept about 77 to 83% of its original specific conductivity in the same test. Talk to an engineer about testing Galvorn to your application’s specific requirements.
Video: Brandon Martin/Rice University.
Recyclability
Recycles into fiber that keeps its properties
When carbon fiber is recycled, it loses properties. In a 2025 Rice University study, Galvorn fiber was dissolved and re-spun once into new fiber that kept its properties within 5% of the original, and the authors describe the fiber as fully recyclable. Rice University also published a video about the study.
Product forms
Ready to use, in forms your line already runs
Galvorn can be run on wire and cable manufacturing equipment, including extrusion. Galvorn can also be knitted, woven, or embroidered using standard textile equipment, and some fine tuning of machines may be required. You build the wire, cable, shielding, or finished component, and DexMat supplies the material.
Browse fiber tow, twisted yarn, braided yarn, and fabric and film in the store. Each product card shows its performance data, so you can compare options right away.
DexMat is a production-stage company shipping Galvorn from Houston today to customers in aerospace and defense, wire and cable, and automotive. Since founding, we have cut production costs 99.6% and increased production capacity 3,000x.
Applications
See where Galvorn fits your design
Galvorn fits five application areas: wire and cable, EMI shielding, thermal management, multifunctional composites, and advanced textiles. Start with the one closest to your design to see what Galvorn does there and what to specify.
FAQ
Yes. Galvorn is a carbon material made of densely packed, highly aligned carbon structures. Making Galvorn explains how that structure is built.
Start with a sample
Order sample quantities of any Galvorn form from the store, download the data sheet for full specifications, or talk with our engineers about your application.