DuPont Industrial Biosciences recently announced its biomaterials team received the American Coatings Award for the most outstanding conference paper at the 2018 American Coatings Conference in Indianapolis. Christian Lenges and Monica Harvey accepted the award on behalf of the team, which also included Natnael Behabtu, along with SYNPO’s Richard Milič and Jarmila Vlasakova. Their paper, entitled, “Enzymatic Polymerization for Engineered Polysaccharides in Coatings,” stood out to the judges among over 200 other submissions.

The technical paper reportedly addresses how DuPont Biomaterials has developed a line of engineered polysaccharides ranging in molecular weight, solubility and polymer architecture. While the team is reportedly actively developing various end-use applications across different markets for initial development targets, the use in coatings as presented at the ACS meeting is one such application. The team highlighted how the companys’ enzymatic polymerization process offers the opportunity to allow for the rational design of polysaccharide polymer structure, architecture and material morphology.

“For the first time, we can use catalyst design (in this case the enzyme) and process control to produce specific, tailor-made structures from a common monomer, sucrose,” said Lenges. “We view the enzymatic polymerization technology as transformational to provide new material options for a range of important end use markets. This technology enables access to a range of new engineered polysaccharide materials which are renewable and inherently biodegradable.”

For more information, visit www.dupont.com.