A DuPont Industrial Biosciences team received the 2018 American Coatings Award for the most outstanding conference paper during the Plenary Session of the 2018 American Coatings Conference in Indianapolis, USA. The team was presented a sculpture and a US$2500 cash award.

DuPont Industrial Biosciences’ Christian Lenges and Monica Harvey accepted the award on behalf of the team, which included Natnael Behabtu, along with Synpo’s Richard Milič and Jarmila Vlasakova, for their paper titled, “Enzymatic Polymerization for Engineered PolySaccharides in Coatings”.

Polysaccharides are important biopolymers with a wide range of industrial and consumer applications. Historically, structural polysaccharides, such as cellulose have been the backbone of early material science for applications in fibres, coatings and thermoplastics.

In their technical paper, the team addressed how DuPont Industrial Biosciences has developed a family of engineered polysaccharides ranging in molecular weight, solubility, and polymer architecture and the use of this derived class of biomaterials as a component in coating applications. The team highlighted how DuPont Industrial Biosciences‘ enzymatic polymerization process offers the opportunity to allow for the rational design of polysaccharide polymer structure, architecture and material morphology.

Christian Lenges is the Business Development Director for Biomaterials at DuPont Industrial Biosciences, focusing on the development and launch of growth businesses to make industrial chemicals and materials from renewable feedstocks.

Natnael Behabtu is a Biomaterial Application Development Leader at DuPont Industrial Biosciences, leading ideation, development and implementation of emerging and growth technologies to make materials with substantially improved environmental impact.

Monica Harvey is a Technical Service and Application Development Specialist at DuPont Industrial Biosciences, working to develop new outlets and applications for DuPont’s emerging engineered polysaccharides platform.

Richard Milič heads the R&D department Research II at Synpo a.s, and has been working with DuPont for more than 20 years focusing on the development of alkyds, polyurethanes, acrylics and formulations made on those basis.

Jarmila Vlasakova is a Senior Researcher at Synpo a.s., focusing on formulation and evaluation of paints based on alkyd, polyester and polyurethane resins.