Ajman: A small United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based company owned by an Indian, that produces raw materials for the paint industry, is among this year's list of winners of a top nanotechnology award given by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US.

Gold Valley Chemical Company (GVCC), based in the emirate of Ajman in the UAE, figures among the 50 winners of the 2008 Nano 50 awards announced this month by Nanotech Briefs, the digital publication forum of NASA.

GVCC has been selected for developing a product that incorporates nanotechnology in its design and operation, "with significant current or near-term commercial applications".

According to GVCC president Adolph Dias, the product that his company has developed - Whitegold - significantly enhances the quality of titanium dioxide, a major chemical used in the paint industry.

"Titanium dioxide is a very expensive raw material which no paint manufacturer can virtually do without today," Dias told IANS.

Stating that his company decided to enhance the performance of titanium dioxide so that the refractiveness of a paint was increased, he said: "There were two ways to do it: one was to change the refractive index of the product and two, to do what we call the spacing of the product."