Teijin Wins Top ICIS Innovation Award for 2011

LONDON, October 17, 2011 -

ICIS, a leading global provider of news and information for the chemical and energy sectors, today announces the winners in the ICIS Innovation Awards 2011.

These annual awards are supported by Dow Corning as lead sponsor, with category sponsorship by management consultancy CRA (Best Product Innovation), chemical distributor U.S. Chemicals (Innovation with Best Environmental Benefit) and health, nutrition and materials company DSM (Best Innovation for Sustainability).

Overall winner for 2011

The panel of five leading industry experts (see below) awarded Teijin of Japan the prize for best overall innovation for its development of mass-production technologies for carbon fibre reinforced plastics (see below for further details).

The winners of the category awards are:

Best product innovation

Teijin (Japan)

Best Innovation by an SME

LanzaTech (New Zealand)

Best Business Innovation

Bio Amber (US)

Innovation with Best Environmental Benefit

Novomer (US)

Best Innovation for Sustainability

No winner was awarded this year

NOTE: In the Sustainability category, the judges agreed after consideration that none of the limited number of entries met the high standards of innovation being looked for across all three criteria of economic, social and environmental benefits.

Awards highlight growing move to bio-based technologies

John Baker, global editor at ICIS, who manages the ICIS Innovation Awards, commented that: “The Awards continue to highlight the best the chemical industry has to offer in the way of innovation and providing solutions to society’s needs

“This year, there was a significant emphasis on bio-based technologies, designed to replace oil and gas feedstocks in the chemical industry or reduce carbon emissions.

“Indeed, most entries focused around helping the environment and maintaining the sustainability of the industry, while at the same time helping customers and driving bottom line growth for companies.”

ICIS congratulates all the winners and indeed all those companies that reached the short-list. The Awards will be presented at a lunch in London on 2 December.

The judges this year were:

• Neil Checker, vice president and head of the Europe and Middle East region for chemicals at CRA
• Roger Highfield, editor, New Scientist
• Adrian Higson, head of biorefining at NNFCC, the UK Centre for Biorenewable Energy, Fuels and Materials
• Marcel Wubbolts, chief technology officer, DSM
• Gregg Zank, senior vice president and chief technology officer, Dow Corning

Overall winner/Best Product Innovation - Teijin
Toshio Ishihara

The world’s first mass production technologies for carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). With automotive exhaust regulations becoming increasingly strict, there is a mounting need to reduce vehicle weight by using materials such as CFRP. Japanese fiber and chemicals producer Teijin, the world’s second-largest producer of carbon fiber, has developed the world’s first mass-production technologies for CFRP. This allows a significant reduction of the time required for molding an automobile body structure to less than one minute. Teijin’s new technologies include intermediate materials made of thermoplastic resin instead of thermosets for molding-use CFRP and methods to weld CFRP parts together and bond CFRP with other materials such as steel.  

Best Innovation by an SME - LanzaTech

Sean Simpson and Jennifer Holmgren

An efficient route to carbon capture and re-use producing high-value chemicals and fuels. New Zealand-based biomaterials start-up LanzaTech has developed a gas fermentation process that produces both fuels and high-value chemicals from low-cost resources, such as industrial flue gases from steel mills and processing plants, syngas generated from any biomass resource, coal-derived syngas and steam-reformed methane. LanzaTech’s technology uses a modified Clostridium to convert gas (rich in carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2)) into ethanol and 2,3-butandiol. The organism can be modified further to yield butanol, propanol, isoprene, succinic acid and other chemicals. LanzaTech’s process, proven at pilot scale using unconditioned steel mill waste gases, will be operating at commercial scale in 2013.

Best Business Innovation - BioAmber

Babette Pettersen

Innovation in biosuccinic acid. US renewable chemistry start up BioAmber has been first-to-market with bio-based succinic acid, creating a portfolio of renewable chemicals and polymers from the biomaterial including 1,4-butanediol and modified PBS. Open innovation has allowed BioAmber to utilize deep, existing industry know-how and global infrastructure, while reducing capital expenditure and accelerating development. It has licensed E. coli technology from the US Department of Energy, and is building on this with yeast technology from US-based company Cargill. BioAmber combines this advantage with a unique downstream purification technology developed with US non-profit research company MATRIC, and catalyst technology from US based DuPont that converts succinic acid to 1,4-butanediol and tetrahydrofuran.

Innovation with Best Environmental Benefit - Novomer

Peter Shepard

CO2-based polyols for high-performance coatings, adhesives, foams, composites and surfactants. Novomer has developed a technology platform based on an innovative, proprietary catalyst system that transforms waste CO2 into valuable polymers. These polypropylene carbonate and polyethylene carbonate materials are approximately one-half CO2by weight. The catalyst is more than 300 times more active than previous systems, and produces a precise CO2-epoxide molecular structure which maximizes CO2incorporation. Novomer has developed a chain transfer technology to produce low molecular weight CO2-based polyols for thermoset applications, making them commercially viable in coatings, adhesives, foams and composite resins.

The winning companies can be contacted as follows:

Teijin
Rie Mashiba
Public relations & investor relations
Tel: +81-3-3506-4055
Email: pr@teijin.co.jp

BioAmber
Babette Pettersen
Senior VP Marketing & Sales
Tel: +32-478-490976
Email: babette.pettersen@bio-amber.com

Novomer
Peter Shepard
Tel: +1-781-419-9860
Email: pshepard@novomer.com

LanzaTech
Freya Burton
Tel: +64-93042112
Email: freya.burton@lanzatech.com

About ICIS

ICIS is the world’s largest petrochemical market information provider, and has fast-growing energy and fertilizer divisions.

Their aim is to give companies in global commodities markets a competitive advantage by delivering trusted pricing data, high value news, analysis and independent consulting, enabling their customers to make better-informed trading and planning decisions.

With a global staff of more than 550, ICIS has people based in Houston, Washington, New York, London, Milan, Montpellier, Dusseldorf, Mumbai, Singapore, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Perth. The team covers over 120 commodity markets and has in-depth knowledge across markets in upstream and downstream sectors in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and the Americas.

The business is a division of Reed Business Information Limited, part of Reed Elsevier

About Dow Corning

Dow Corning provides performance-enhancing solutions to serve the diverse needs of more than 25,000 customers worldwide. A global leader in silicones, silicon-based technology and innovation, Dow Corning offers more than 7,000 products and services via the company’s Dow Corning and XIAMETER brands.

Dow Corning is a joint venture equally owned by The Dow Chemical Company and Corning, Incorporated. More than half of Dow Corning’s annual sales are outside the US.

About U.S. Chemicals LLC

U.S. Chemicals, LLC, is a 50-year-old worldwide specialty chemical distributor serving the textiles, paint, flame retardants, plastic, cosmetic, personal care, food and pharmaceutical industries. A woman-owned business based in Darien, Connecticut, US, U.S. Chemicals actively supports environmentally responsible manufacturers and distributors of chemical products and services.

About CRA 

CRA (www.crai.com) is a global consulting firm specializing in management, litigation, financial, and regulatory consulting. Since 1965, clients have engaged CRA for its unique combination of functional expertise and industry knowledge, and for its objective solutions to complex problems. Headquartered in Boston, CRA has offices throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. CRA’s Chemicals Practice applies keen insight and rich experience across the industry, from upstream petrochemicals and polymers to downstream specialty chemicals and materials. We specialise in strategy, technology management, M&A, performance improvement and organisation restructuring.

About DSM

Royal DSM N.V. is a global science-based company active in health, nutrition and materials. By connecting its unique competences in Life Sciences and Materials Sciences, DSM is driving economic prosperity, environmental progress and social advances to create sustainable value for all stakeholders. DSM delivers innovative solutions that nourish, protect and improve performance in global markets such as food and dietary supplements, personal care, feed, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, automotive, paints, electrical and electronics, life protection, alternative energy and bio-based materials. DSM’s 22,000 employees deliver annual net sales of about €9 billion. The company is listed on NYSE Euronext. More information can be found at: www.dsm.com

For media inquiries, contact:

John Baker
ICIS
Tel: +44-20-8652-3153
Email: john.baker@icis.com
Website: www.icis.com

Jarrod Erpelding
Dow Corning
Tel: +1-989-496-1582
Email: jarrod.erpelding@dowcorning.com
Website: www.dowchemical.com

Carol Piccaro
U.S. Chemicals LLC
Tel: +1-203-655-8878
Email: cpiccaro@uschemicals.com
Website:  www.uschemicals.com

Dr Neil Checker
CRA
Tel: +44-20-7959-1582
Email: nchecker@crai.com
Website: www.crai.com/chemicals

Petra Meijers
Branding & Communications Manager
DSM Innovation Center
Tel: +31-46-4763559
Email: petra.meijers@dsm.com
Website: www.dsm.com

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