Kyle Price, a PhD Candidate with the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, and researchers from Arkema Coating Resins, a business unit of Arkema, have earned the prestigious American Coatings AWARD for most outstanding technical presentation at the American Coatings Conference in Atlanta, Georgia this week. The award was selected and sponsored by the American Coatings Association and Vincentz Network, and was presented at the show’s plenary session the morning of April 7, 2014.

“On behalf of Arkema Coating Resins and Arkema Fluoropolymers, we would like to thank our colleagues at the University of Minnesota for their excellent work,” Dr. Wenjun Wu, Principle Scientist for Arkema Coating Resins, said at the award presentation. “This paper is valuable both for the knowledge it represents, and as an outstanding example of collaboration between academia and industry.”

The research presented, entitled “Stress Development and Film Formation in Multiphase Composite Latexes,” was a collaboration between the University of Minnesota and Arkema – and was supported by a GOALI grant from the National Science Foundation. It focused on establishing connections between the particle composition, particle morphology and film formation behavior of industrially relevant latex polymers. The researchers explored how a soft core/hard shell particle morphology influences film formation and stress development of latex coatings, and related the results to the end-use performance of practical paint formulations.