ICIQ researcher Dr. Aymeric Champion has won the Paul Dufour award for the best conference paper at the RadTech Europe Conference & Exhibition 2021. “This award is a great recognition of the work we’ve been carrying out at CSOL to develop Prof. Melchiorre’s ERC Proof of Concept grant (ref. H2020-ERC-2019-PoC 899541-Light-COAT) on photoinitiators for coating and composite applications,” states Dr. Champion.

In 2003, the traditional prize to the best paper was named after one of RadTech Europe’s founders, Paul Dufour, in recognition of his contribution to UV/EB technology (which uses electron beam (EB), ultraviolet (UV) or visible light to polymerize a combination of monomers and oligomers onto a substrate). The award has become the quintessential UV/EB curing standard and is given to the most innovative essay presented at the conference. This year, Dr. Champion has seen his abstract entitled “Dithiocarbamates as visible light photoinitiators for controlled radical polymerization” recognized as the best abstract. During the second day of the conference, the researcher gave an online talk to present the work to an audience of both academic and industrial scientists.

The 2021 online RadTech conference, was held online from October 19-20, 2021. The two-day virtual conference addressed the future of radiation curing, examined new and emerging trends and innovations, and took a close look at new applications of UV/EB curing. Innovative companies, as well as academic and governmental research institutes submitted technical abstracts outlining the latest research, current developments and innovations in the field of UV/EB curing.