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Polyurethane Innovation Award


2012 Polyurethane Innovation Award Program and Rules

The Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) is proud of our industry’s continued leadership in innovative solutions and advances in technology. Each year, CPI holds the Polyurethane Innovation Award Program, which highlights the role that innovation plays in the polyurethane industry by recognizing companies and individuals whose vision and perseverance bring new products, technologies and initiatives to the marketplace. CPI will present this year’s Innovation Award at the Polyurethanes 2012 Technical Conference at the Omni CNN Center in Atlanta, GA, on September 24-26.

Eligibility

To enter the 2012 Polyurethane Innovation Award contest, simply complete the entry form and submit it to CPI by 5:00 PM EDT on June 29, 2012. Incomplete or late submissions will not be considered. Entries and photos will not be returned.

Entries pertaining to a polyurethane product or polyurethane manufacture must relate to polyurethane chemistry, which is expressly defined as the reaction of an isocyanate with a polyol. Innovations in polyurethane chemistry may include finished products, initiatives, training or education programs, or processes or processing equipment.

Entries must represent new innovations: the idea, technology or process may not have been submitted to CPI for the Innovation Award before and must not have been available for commercial sales longer than 15 months prior to the submission deadline for this year’s award (June 29). Joint submissions will be accepted for evaluation by the judging panel.

In addition to the entry form, an abstract of approximately 50 words must be included as well as a technical description of approximately 500 words including the following:

  • The application of the technology, product, program, or process
  • Uniqueness and level of innovation
  • Long-term viability and impact
  • Benefits to the industry and marketplace

Process for Selection of Winner

Following receipt of submissions, CPI staff will screen all applications to ensure compliance with these rules.

Judging Panel: 2/3 of Score

All eligible submissions received by June 29, 2012, will be evaluated by a panel of judges, identified by CPI. This panel of judges will include a range of experts across technical disciplines and across the polyurethane supply chain. 

The judges will award up to 10 points in each of the following categories, for a maximum of 40 total points:

  • Impact on the polyurethanes industry
  • Uniqueness of the innovation
  • Quality of the science
  • Societal impact

The three applicants with the highest total scores will be selected as finalists, recognized at the Polyurethanes 2012 Technical Conference and considered for the Polyurethane Innovation Award.

Audience Vote: 1/3 of Score

Voting for the Polyurethane Innovation Award will take place during the Opening Session of the conference at the conclusion of the finalist presentations on Monday, September 24.  Each individual conference registrant in attendance at the Opening Session may cast one vote for one finalist. The finalist with the most votes from the audience will receive an additional 20 points to be added to the score from the judges.  The innovation with the highest total score will be deemed the winner and announced on Wednesday, September 26, 2012, during the Closing Session of the Polyurethanes 2012 Technical Conference.

Finalist Notification

Finalists will be notified by August 15, 2012. Each finalist must agree to attend the conference to be considered for the final award and will receive one complimentary, full conference registration to the Polyurethanes 2012 Technical Conference, held September 24-26, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia (a value of up to $900). Finalists are responsible for travel and hotel accommodations.

Finalists’ entries will be on display during the conference.  Abstracts, pictures or diagrams will be highlighted on CPI’s website.

Finalists must prepare a three minute PowerPoint presentation, which may include video or multimedia, to be shown during the Opening Session of the Polyurethanes 2012 Technical Conference on September 24. Finalists must also prepare a poster that will be on display at the conference. Finalists will be provided with poster size restrictions upon notification of selection as a finalist.

Finalists will be invited to attend in the media reception on Sunday, September 23, 2012, where they will be introduced to the press and will have the opportunity to interact with the media.

The Polyurethane Innovation Award Winner

The winner of the 2012 Polyurethanes Innovation Award will be announced on September 26. The winner will be:

  • Presented an award during the closing session of the Polyurethanes 2012 Technical Conference
  • Promoted in a CPI news release distributed to the media
  • Highlighted on a special innovation page of CPI’s website in which visitors will be able to learn more about the innovation
  • Provided one complimentary registration to the Polyurethanes 2013 Technical Conference on September 23-25, 2013, in Phoenix, Arizona
  • Showcased at the Polyurethanes 2013 Technical Conference

Any changes to these dates or policies will be posted on the CPI website.

For any and all materials submitted to ACC to support or promote your submission to the Innovation Award program, you grant to ACC a royalty-free license to use these materials in any and all means and manner we deem fit and in all markets and media now known or hereafter devised, without additional consideration.

More Information

For more information regarding the Polyurethane Innovation Award program, contact:

Center for the Polyurethanes Industry
700 2nd St NE
Washington, DC 20002
Tel: (202) 249-6605
Email: Lindsay_Rayfield@americanchemistry.com

2011 Polyurethane Innovation Award Winner

On September 28, 2011, the winner of the 2011 Polyurethane Innovation Award was announced—Albemarle Corporation: Breakthrough Color Stable Spray Coating Technology with Ethacure® 90.

Albemarle’s winning technology is a new color stable aliphatic polyurea coating technology developed in partnership with LINE-X Protective Coatings. The technology is based on Albemarle’s ETHACURE® 90, a new aliphatic curative designed at the molecular level to provide moderate cure speed, allowing ease of formulation. The new coating technology is UV and color stable, giving customer’s color choice without the need for an additional topcoat. It also provides rapid return to service and generates minimal volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

  The commercial use of spray polyurea elastomeric coatings has grown rapidly (example, 2011 Shanghai-Beijing high speed rail). The technology, however, has suffered from a lack of color/UV stability due to the aromatic content of the coatings. A new fully aliphatic spray polyurea technology based on Ethacure® 90 eliminates this limitation, providing color stable coatings, opening up a vast new range of commercial applications.
--Albemarle Corporation		  


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