“Please join me in congratulating these professors on their successful proposals,” Marsolan said.  “This work will advance knowledge in core pulp and papermaking processes as well as emerging opportunities for our industry.  We welcome companies’ expressions of interest in these projects, and offer opportunities for collaboration and leveraging of this important work.”

This year's winners are:

• Tunable Polymeric Membranes for Energy-Efficient Black Liquor Concentration - Sankar Nair, Meisha Shofner, Scott Sinquefield

• New Functionality via Vapor-Phase Surface Modification of Cellulose - Mark Losego

• Removal of Particulate Contaminants from Process Effluents by "Affinity Flotation" - Sven Behrens, Carson Meredith

• Low-Cost, Large-Scale Manufacturing of Multifuctional Porous Cellulose/Nanoparticle Microspheres for Water Treatment - Zhiqun Lin

• Biorefining: Catalytic Processes for the Production of Value-Added Chemicals from Lignin - Carston Sievers, Andreas Bommarius, Pamela Peralta-Yahya, Matthew Realff, Valerie Thomas

• Rheological Characterizatoin of Nanocellulose for Metrology and Quality Control Research - Victor Breedveld

• Nanocellulose as Reinforcement: An Approach Toward Light-Weighting of Polymer Composites - Kyriaki Kalaitzidou, Karl Jacob

• 3D Printed High-Strength and Lighweight Epoxy/Nanocellulose Composite Products for Automobile and Aerospace Applications - Jerry Qi, Yulin Deng

The annual award process involves a request for proposals from professors, consideration of priorities of RBI member companies and the industry at large, and evaluation by a faculty committee.  This year, a particular effort was made to reflect the industry research priorities expressed in Agenda 2020 roadmaps (see www.agenda2020.org).  Currently, there are 43 endowment-supported students pursuing graduate degrees at Georgia Tech.  Click here for a listing.

For more information about RBI and its research portfolio, please visit the website at RBI at Georgia Tech