Best Paper Award Winners Announced For Radtech 2008

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mickey Fortune

240-497-1242; mickey@radtech.org

Sustainability Featured in Best Papers at Ultraviolet and Electron Beam Technical Conference

Bethesda, MD (June 23, 2008) - The recent RadTech 2008 Conference and Exhibition in Chicago featured cutting edge presentations on "electron beam" (EB) and "ultraviolet energy" (UV) industrial technologies with the Conference committee selecting best papers for the event:

Best technical paper:

Professor John Garnett, head of RadTech Australia, was awarded the best paper this year with his presentation on "Novel UV/EB Curable Flame Retardant Coatings Using Unique Water Compatible Oligomers; Applications of the Coatings Particularly for Recycling Waste Products Such as Banana Tree Trunks."  "Dr. Garnett's paper lent itself to green chemistry by turning waste into usable product, using renewable resources that advance sustainability, applying the chemistry such that it could benefit humanitarian interests and applications, and using the unique properties of the raw material to their advantage," according to Molly Hladik if Hewlett Packard, the RadTech 2008 Technical Committee Chair.  "As we saw throughout the sessions at this conference, green, renewable, and sustainable are three of the key topics of the future and this paper embodied all three which is why it was awarded best paper."

Best university paper:

The best university paper award went to Sun Yat-Sen University in China for "Photodecarboxylation in UV-curable Water-borne Coatings."  "Water compatible UV formulations are very important to green chemistry and sustainability," says Dr. Hladik.  "This paper describes how water compatible monomers may become water resistant polymers by photodecarboxyilation." 

RadTech is the non profit trade association for the UV&EB Technologies with over 700 members worldwide.