WASHINGTON, D.C. - Christian Decker, Director of Research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Strasbourg, France, will receive the Roy W. Tess Award in Coatings for 2009. The announcement was made by the Officers and the Award Committee of the Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE) of the American Chemical Society.

 

Decker is recognized as one of the world's leading experts in the area of radiation-induced reactions in polymeric materials. His main research interests are in ultrafast light-induced polymerizations, the synthesis and characterization of UV-cured coatings and nanocomposite materials, photostabilization of polymers, and laser-assisted chemical processing of polymers. He has contributed over 300 publications, patents and book chapters to the coatings and scientific literature, as well as given more than 300 lectures at scientific meetings. Decker is a member of the American Chemical Society, Radtech International, RadTech Europe, French Society of Polymers and the French Society of Chemistry.

 

Decker has been working at the Research Center on Macromolecules of Strasbourg and at Stanford Research in California. In 1975, he joined the University of Haute Alsace and became Head of the Polymer Photochemistry Laboratory at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Chimie de Mulhouse.

 

One of Decker’s main research interests has been highly reactive acrylate monomers, which contain cyclic carbamate or cyclic carbonate moiety and when used as reactive diluents in UV-curable resins undergo polymerization five times as fast as conventional monoacrylates, as well as improve the mechanical properties of the UV-cured polymers.

 

Decker will receive the Roy W. Tess Award from E. Bryan Coughlin, Chair of the PMSE Division, during the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C. He will present an Award Address at that time.

 

The Tess Award is presented annually by the Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering in recognition of outstanding contributions to coatings science and technology. Nominations are being accepted for the 2010 Roy W. Tess Award in Coatings and are welcomed from all segments of industry, academia and government. For more information, contact Theodore Provder at 440/914.0611 or e-mail tprovder@att.net.