Chemistry Innovation sponsored and handed out two awards on 5 October under the umbrella of IChemE's annual awards programme, which recognises innovation and rewards excellence in chemical industries
The event took place at the Banqueting House in Whitehall and 430 diners from the international process industries attended.
The popular TV engineering enthusiast Adam Hart-Davis was on hand to tear open the envelopes and announce the winners.
"We are delighted to support IChemE's innovation programme," commented CEO Carol Boyer, who hosted two tables at the event.
The 2006 award for innovation in applied catalysis and colloid science, presented by Hugo Steven, technical director, went to Eindhoven University of Technology for its new PrOx micro-reactor, which is designed to remove carbon monoxide from hydrogen gas for fuel cells.
Possible applications for the micro-reactor system are, amongst others, electricity production (order of 100Watts) in remote and rural locations (eg, weather stations, measuring equipment, lighting) and battery replacement in mobile electronic equipment (eg, laptop computers).
A delighted Professor Jaap Schouten accepted the trophy.
"Winning an award like this is very motivating for a university research group.
"It gives fantastic recognition of the work and confirmation of the line of research.
"It shows that we are doing the right thing.
"It is very nice that this particular award has a focus on 'innovation' as nowadays our projects are more and more evaluated on their innovative character and industrial applicability," he said.
""I had no idea about how stimulating the winning of this award would be for my group.
"It brought us a lot of good publicity and it drew attention to what we do".
In the same category Merck was highly commended for ita cleaner, faster and greener route to an atherosclerosis treatment, as was Greenwich and Surrey Universities' project for quality in particulate-based manufacturing (QPM).
The 2006 award for green chemical technology, presented by Neville Hargreaves, commercial director, was accepted by the team from Carbon8 Systems.
Their accelerated carbonation technology (ACT) aims to treat hazardous wastes and remediate contaminated land by carbonation.
The process takes minutes rather than months, so is significantly quicker and more cost effective than alternatives.
Successful remediation projects include North Sea oil drill cuttings for BP, cement kiln dust at Land Securities and Cleanaway's water treatment sludges.
Commenting on the award, Colin Hills said "The directors of Carbon8 are delighted to have received the 2006 green chemical technology award.
"The award has been especially important in focussing attention on Carbon8's endeavours to use carbon dioxide emissions as a resource in the creation of materials of value from waste.
"The Banqueting House venue was excellent and the hospitality of the night meant that far too much champagne was consumed in celebration of this excellent result."
