Why Kanthal® Award

The Kanthal® Award recognizes innovations related to new solutions in Sustainability, Quality of Life and the field of Energy Efficiency. We believe in the power of sharing experiences, knowledge and ideas, evolving them and introducing them to the marketplace. All with one common purpose – to make a sustainable world for coming generations.

Over time our innovations within materials technology have given us amazing architecture, revolutionary new techniques, safer environments and even toast in the morning. Things that make life easier, safer and more comfortable.

But there is still a lot to do to ensure a more sustainable world for coming generations. We know that innovations can enable people to live safer, healthier and more sustainable lives by developing better and more effective processes. Most important are perhaps the ones related to energy.

That’s why we have created the Kanthal® Award, in order to award innovative solutions that make a difference for the future.

Join us in making this journey; together we can reach beyond the expected.

Background to the Kanthal® Award


The world is facing extensive challenges and we need to reduce our environmental footprint and find ways to support the growing global population with food, water and energy.

Kanthal aims to be in the forefront of sustainable heating technology to improve life for people and planet. That’s our purpose and we want to be a part of solving the world’s challenges. With Kanthal Award, we invite our customers and partners to join us in this quest. We truly believe in sharing ideas and combining them into new solutions is the path to sustainable innovation and win-win solutions. Therefore, sharing is also one of the basic features of the Kanthal® Award.

The History of Kanthal®

The Kanthal® brand is based on the company AB Kanthal that was founded in 1931 by Hans von Kantzow in Hallstahammar, Sweden. The Kanthal® FeCrAl alloy was invented almost by accident. A forgotten sample in a furnace resulted, after years of development work, in a completely new resistance material. After the market introduction in 1931, the Kanthal® alloy outperformed the existing nickel-chromium (NiCr) alloys and company expanded rapidly on the world market.

In the late 1990s Sandvik became majority shareholder in Kanthal®. Today Kanthal® is the brand for Sandvik’s heating technology products and services. The original FeCrAl alloy is still a product in our portfolio, although improved in a number of respects. It is now part of a complete product range of heating technology products and resistance materials that covers almost all applications and temperatures. Since the start in 1862, when Göran Fredrik Göransson founded Sandvik, to be followed by the same sense of entrepreneurship and innovation by Hans von Kantzow, innovation has been a part of our DNA.