United States. A team from DuPont Industrial Biosciences received the 2018 American Coatings Award for the most outstanding conference document, during the Plenary Session of the 2018 American Coatings Conference in Indianapolis, Ind.
Christian Lenges and Monica Harvey accepted the award on behalf of the team, for their work entitled "Enzymatic Polymerization for Engineering Polysaccharides in Coatings". The team received a sculpture and a $2,500 cash prize.
In their whitepaper, the team addressed how DuPont Industrial Biosciences has developed a family of engineered polysaccharides that vary in molecular weight, solubility, and polymer architecture, and the use of this biomaterial-derived class as a component in coating applications.
Polysaccharides are important biopolymers with a wide range of industrial and consumer applications. Historically, structural polysaccharides such as cellulose have been the backbone of primitive materials science for applications in fibers, coatings, and thermoplastics. The team highlighted how DuPont Industrial Biosciences' enzymatic polymerization process offers the opportunity to enable the rational design of polysaccharide polymer structure, architecture and material morphology.
