Academics receive plastics prize money

Quadrant has awarded Eur 25,000 in prize money to three academics working in the field of plastics.

Quadrant conferred the international Quadrant Award for the second time last Saturday.

This scientific award has a prize of EUR 15,000 and was won by Woo Soo Kim of Korea, who wrote his thesis at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea, and is now pursuing post-doctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA.

The second prize of EUR 7000 went to American entrant Kirt Page, from The University of Southern Mississippi, USA, who is currently engaged in National Research Council post-doctoral studies at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA.

The winner of the third prize of EUR 3000 was Kyriaki Kalaitzidou from Greece, at Michigan State University, USA, who is now pursuing post-doctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts, USA.

The event took place at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich in the presence of numerous guests from industry and academia.

The international invitation to submit entries for the award was addressed to graduates who had written a doctoral thesis in the subject field of materials and processes related to engineering and high-performance plastics and composites between August 1, 2005, and October 31, 2006.

A letter of recommendation from the professor supervising the thesis was necessary for each application.

The academic jury awarded the first prize to Woo Soo Kim for his thesis entitled "Synthesis and Characterisation of UV Curable Fluorinated Hybrimers for Nano Imprints", because he presented a thorough research project which encompassed the synthesis of the materials, their characterisation and a promising path towards their application in the rapidly growing field of nano-patterning.

The second prize was awarded for the thesis entitled "The Influence of Electrostatic Interactions on Chain Dynamics and Morphological Development in Semi-Crystalline Perfluorosulfonate Ionomers for Fuel Cell Applications" by Kirt Page, who impressed the jury with his rigorous characterisation and deep understanding of the structure of functionalised polymer ionomers.

Kyriaki Kalaitzidou was awarded a prize for her thesis entitled "Exfoliated Graphite Nanoplatelets as Reinforcement for Multifunctional Polypropylene Nanocomposites".

The jury appreciated the innovative use of graphite platelets and the progress made towards carbon fibre or carbon nanotube substitutes in polymer composites.

The members of the academic jury are on the staff of internationally acclaimed universities or institutions, have many years of experience in the field of materials and plastics sciences and supervise numerous doctoral candidates annually.

The members of the academic jury are: Professor Volker Altstadt, Director of the Department of Polymer Engineering, University of Bayreuth, Germany; Professor Martin Gruebele, Lycan Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, and Director of the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology; Professor Jan-Anders Mandaringnson, Vice-President and Head of Innovation and Technology Transfer, and Professor Dr Ignaas Verpoest, Professor at the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

Professor Paolo Ermanni, ETH Zurich, Centre of Structure Technologies, presided at the event as a non-jury member.

The number of international entries received was encouraging, as was the quality of the papers submitted.

The launch of the international Quadrant Award is intended to foster talent worldwide and facilitate access to industry for plastics scientists and engineers after completion of their academic training.

Quadrant also aims to make a contribution to building a bridge between industry and academia.

Customers and guests from the business and research communities were invited to the award presentation ceremony for the first time in 2007 in order to make this attractive platform accessible to a wider circle of interested parties.

The next Quadrant Award will be conferred in 2009.

The award presented was designed by the internationally distinguished Swiss artist Beat Zoderer.

The design is based on the artist's idea that thermoplastics can be worked in the liquid state.

Liquid plastic dripping onto an object such as paper or a panel forms drops of different sizes, which also resemble the emergence of innovative ideas in the form of drops of imagination.

Beat Zoderer has translated this idea into a relief landscape of circles.

The base material used was a sheet of Ertacetal C blue 50 plastic produced at Quadrant's plant in Tielt, Belgium.

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