Momentive's Ladislau Heisler Wins Foam Industry's Herman Stone Technical Excellence Award
The Polyurethane Foam Association (PFA) announced by press release today that Ladislau Heisler, technology leader, UA, is the winner of the prestigious Herman Stone Technical Excellence Award. The award is given twice a year in conjunction with PFA technical programs, and Ladislau’s winning paper was presented at the Spring PFA meeting in Baltimore, Maryland on May 20th and 21st. The paper achieved the highest score in the award competition since its inception. Gregory Pickrell co-authored the paper, and Jolene Graham, Kevin Husk and Derrick Johns are the technicians who performed all of the laboratory work on which the paper and the presentation were based. All of the collaborators work in our Sistersville, West Virginia location.
Dr. Heisler’s presentation and the paper, "New Silicone Surfactant for Flexible Slabstock Foams Produced Using Natural Oil-Based Polyols" describes Niax* silicone L-670, a new surfactant that is an excellent candidate to consider for flexible slabstock foams produced using natural oil-based polyols (NOP). Consumer awareness of “green” issues and the depletion of non-renewable resources has created increasing demand for the creation of foam products using renewable content. Dr. Heisler and Momentive’s Urethane Additives Research and Development group are working to provide new additives to be considered for polyurethane foam manufacturing using NOP.
Lowering the potential environmental impact of foam production through the use of renewable resources has been a key issue in the foam industry. Recent past winners were:
Spring 2008: Bayer MaterialScience, for "Introducing Renewable Resource Derived Polyols for Conventional Slabstock Foam".
Spring 2007: Cargill Industrial Bio-Products, for "Advances in Natural Oil Based Polyols Chemistry and Supply Options for the Flexible Slabstock Foam Industry".
The objective of the Herman Stone Technical Excellence Award is to encourage the sharing of technical innovations, the use of scientific methodology, and professionalism in presentation technique. Abstracts for papers presented at PFA Technical Programs are available at http://www.pfa.org/abstracts/index.html.
Click here to view PFA press release.
Click here to view Momentive press release.
Click here to view the presentation.
*Niax is a trademark of Momentive Performance Materials Inc.
