Jurgen Van Holen, UV cure expert, has received the ‘Open Innovation’ award from Hexion’s epoxy business after submitting the winning proposal as part of Hexion’s ‘Create the Future with Lower Yellowing, Renewable Resins and Raw Materials’ innovation challenge.

“We believe that this idea will create the most value to develop innovative sustainable technologies and formulations for novel coatings, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions through longer service life and single layer coatings,” said Dr. Gab Badini, Global Research and Development Director. “These developments will help paint manufacturers meet, or exceed, the requirements of their customers with more sustainable, lower yellowing coatings.”

The “Innovation Challenge” generated strong interest across the globe leading for innovative submissions from industrial suppliers, research institutes, thought leaders and inventors. During the selection process, the submitters were contacted by Hexion experts to further nurture their concepts. The winning proposal identified specific chemical structures that can be used to develop new epoxy resins or to modify an epoxy/amine system in an effort to reduce or eliminate yellowing. The selected approaches leverage bio-based materials, which are intended to increase the overall sustainability of epoxy resin systems.

“This winning submission offers the potential to help meet customers’ needs, protect the environment and benefit society,” said Ann Frederix, Senior Vice President, Coatings and Composites. “Our innovation challenge provided a unique opportunity for thought leaders to accelerate innovation and commercial development of more sustainable, higher-performance resins for anticorrosive coatings. We look forward to partnering with Jurgen van Holen and were pleased to introduce innovative industry thinkers to this open innovation approach for technology development.”

“The open innovation challenge has been a unique opportunity to collaborate with experts in the field and identify additional ways chemistry can contribute to a more sustainable world,” said Jurgen van Holen.