TLT: What is your aim in your work?
Alieva: My work was founded from a personal motivation to challenge the assumption that wear, inefficiency and loss of performance are unavoidable in machines. We are developing lubrication solutions which help machines retain efficiency, avoid premature aging and reduce harmful emissions. By extending the healthy working life of equipment, we aim to preserve resources and support a higher quality of human life, in balance with the natural environment.
TLT: As a startup, what aspect of developing your technology story have you found the most difficult?
Alieva: One of the most challenging aspects of developing our technology story has been demonstrating to the outside world (to the investment community among others) that lubricants and lubrication are a meaningful lever in the climate preservation agenda. Lubricants are rarely perceived as part of the solution; instead, they are often automatically associated with “oil and gas territory,” rather than with mechanical efficiency, resource preservation or emissions reduction.
By relying on our additive system, we have set out to reframe the role of lubricants—from disposable consumables to functional analogues of synovial fluids: adaptive systems that protect, support and extend the working life of moving mechanical components. This shift in perspective has been essential, but not easy, as it requires challenging long-held assumptions about where climate impact truly originates in industrial systems and what role lubricants can play.
TLT: Are there any areas of the industry where you have met resistance?
Alieva: Interestingly, the lubricants industry itself has proven to be relatively open and curious about new scientific insights and practical knowledge. We have received a great deal of support from within the technical and tribology communities.
Where resistance tends to emerge—particularly for more fundamental or step-change innovation—is within the established and increasingly complex structures of the lubricants supply chain. Long-standing interdependencies between OEMs, additive and lubricant companies, certification bodies and regulatory frameworks can create significant inertia, making the adoption of new technologies slow and difficult. These systems are designed to manage risk and ensure reliability, but they can also unintentionally reinforce established practices, limiting the pace at which genuinely new approaches reach the market.
TLT: What do you think it’s going to take for us to see a new additive technology break through?
Alieva: Bringing a genuinely new lubricant technology into the mainstream will take sustained technical and field work on our side, alongside open minds and brave hearts among end-users. It will also require a gradual transformation of business models—both for OEMs and the lubricants industry—from a focus on volume to a focus on value, outcomes and lifecycle performance.
Equally important are changes in testing and validation methodologies, moving toward approaches that are more adaptive, application-relevant and inclusive of novel chemistries and mechanisms of action. Finally, meaningful collaboration across the ecosystem—between formulators, end-users, OEMs, researchers and standards bodies—will be essential to building the evidence, confidence and shared language needed for new technologies to gain acceptance and scale.
Encouragingly, many of these shifts are already underway, and the growing alignment between technical performance, sustainability objectives and commercial value suggests that the conditions for meaningful progress are steadily falling into place.
You can reach Leyla Alieva at leyla@neolcopper.com.