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IACMI Planning Virtual Fall 2020 Members Meeting IACMI is now planning a virtual Fall 2020 Members Meeting in early October. The exact date and details of the online experience will be shared with members soon, with registration starting in July.
“IACMI, like a lot of organizations, is learning new ways to stay connected as the coronavirus pandemic continues to fundamentally alter the way we live our lives and conduct our business,” said Dale Brosius, IACMI Chief Commercialization Officer. “We would much prefer to meet in person but know this is the right thing to do to ensure the health and safety of our members."
Recently, IACMI had made plans to move its Summer 2020 Members Meeting, originally scheduled for July in Detroit, to September 24-25 and immediately follow CAMX 2020 in Orlando. Due to COVID-19, however, CAMX leadership announced last week that it will transform CAMX 2020 into a completely virtual event.
Brosius said the virtual IACMI Members Meeting will feature high-level keynote speakers, a review of IACMI’s first five years and our path forward, panel discussions and breakout sessions with specific market or technology focus. The ability to personally network with other attendees is important and the platform selected will provide for this valuable aspect of the IACMI Member Meeting experience.
IACMI is still planning a 2021 Winter Members Meeting in the late January or early February time frame and plans to host the Summer 2021 Members Meeting in Detroit, Michigan July 20-22, 2021.
IACMI Consortium Council Welcomes New Members In May, the IACMI Consortium Council announced seven new industrial members. This new group met June 10 and is joining industrial members already on the council as well as representatives from academia and state economic development organizations. The IACMI Consortium Council will lead IACMI’s goals and strategies over the next year:
Mohamed Bouguettaya, BASF Corporation Michael Connolly, Huntsman Polyurethanes Joe Fox, Consultant Shridhar Nath, General Electric Research Center Steve Nolet, TPI Composites Mike Siwajek, Continental Structural Plastics/Teijin Dana Swan, Arkema Inc.
“We are pleased that we have strengthened the IACMI Consortium Council with additional industrial members,” said Dale Brosius, IACMI Chief Commercialization Officer and Executive Director of the IACMI Consortium. “It’s important that our council helps us refine the best value proposition for industry and how we operate as we transition IACMI in 2021 and going forward.”
John Unser Joins SAMPE Foundation Board IACMI Technology Impact Manager John Unser has been appointed to The Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE®) Foundation Board of Directors for the 2020-2022. His term became effective on June 2.
In this prestigious role, John will leverage his 30 years of experience in the composites industry to contribute to the SAMPE Foundation. The SAMPE Foundation is the branch of SAMPE devoted to philanthropy by promoting the materials and processing field in K-12 settings to inspire future interest in the industry. “I have always had a passion for spreading the word about composites, especially to the next generation,” John explained. “The SAMPE Foundation allows me to continue to fulfill that passion.”
Unser first joined SAMPE in 1986 while at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace. His most recent SAMPE involvement includes serving on the Technical Excellence Committee by taking on the lead role of the Rapid Manufacturing Subcommittee. He also supports the University of Tennessee SAMPE Student Chapter and has presented many papers at SAMPE conferences through the years and has served as moderator for several SAMPE tutorial sessions.
John is joining a handful of other scientists, engineers, and academicians on the SAMPE Foundation Board of Directors. His experience in composites and engineering with companies like Caterpillar, Firefly Energy, GMI Composites, McDonnell Douglas and IACMI is what led to his selection as a board member.
Ted Lynch, Chairman of the SAMPE Foundation, said John’s experience in STEM “ties in perfectly to the primary focus of the SAMPE Foundation’s objective, which is to promote education and innovation in the fields of materials and processes on a global basis, particularly at the kindergarten through the 12th-grade level.”
An audience with... CAMX Steering Committee Chair Marcy Offner CAMX leadership announced last week it would transform its 2020 event into a virtual experience that will kick off the week of September 21. We connected with CAMX 2020 Steering Committee Chair Marcy Offner to learn what to expect at the CAMX event. Marcy, who is director of marketing communications for Composites One LLC, also shares insight how her company is supporting customers during the pandemic.
Q1 – COVID-19 has forced all U.S. industries, including composites and advanced materials, to become more agile. How hard was it to make the decision to transform CAMX 2020 into a virtual event?
A: Marcy — It was a difficult decision for the CAMX Steering Committee to make. The CAMX brand is built on the foundation of bringing quality technical content and networking opportunities to our attendees and exhibitors. In the end, the committee made the decision out of great care and concern for our attendees and exhibitors and decided that safety and well-being were critical. We monitored state and federal organization’s health guidelines, as well as the World Health Organization's recommendations. We surveyed exhibitors to gauge the impact of COVID-19 on their decision to participate. We knew it was important for CAMX to continue to support the broader composites industry. A complete virtual event will allow us to bring the CAMX experience to our attendees and exhibitors alike. We wanted to make sure we could deliver a strong return for our exhibitors/sponsors, while delivering innovative products, research and technology, and materials to the global composites and advanced materials community. The virtual CAMX checks all of those boxes and expands our audience – we are excited!
Q2 – The virtual CAMX experience will allow the entire global composites and advanced materials community to network. How will this work?
Q3 – Shifting gears to Composites One. How has/is Composites One pivoting during the pandemic to support your customers?
Scientific Reports Uncovers Komal Kooduvalli’s Compostable Coffee Pods Sustainability Research Sustainability Researcher Komal Kooduvalli is an avid coffee drinker. She knows all too well that single-service coffee machines are a rapid and convenient mechanism for preparing coffee and that the tiny disposable pods are easily discarded and create insurmountable waste in landfills. As Research Supervisor I at UTK/ORNL in March 2018, Komal visited the University of Tennessee-Knoxville’s composting site that collects landscaping and dining waste throughout campus daily that produces nutrient-rich compost for campus gardens and farms. Seeing the composting process in-person inspired Komal to set out and measure the degradation rates of some of the bio-composites that are produced through various manufacturing routes, including a few used BPI certified compostable coffee pods to see how long they would take to break down.
The result? Complete degradation of compostable coffee pods within 46 days. And now, after two years of meticulous fieldwork, analysis, literature review, data collection, modeling and comparative analysis, life cycle assessment and testing, Komal and her team’s research on compostable coffee pods is getting attention. On June 8, the leading, international weekly journal Scientific Reports under Nature research group published an article about the research titled the “Life Cycle Assessment of Compostable Coffee Pods: A US University Based Case Study.”
According to the article, for reasons relating to convenience, time, and sanitation, many people choose to use disposable coffee pods nowadays. While most pods are made from synthetic, non-compostable plastics, companies are now beginning to produce compostable, bioderived plastics. These compostable pods can be sent to industrial composting facilities with the coffee grounds intact, providing convenience for consumers compared to conventional pods while diverting waste from landfills.
Komal, with the help of IACMI Chief Technology Officer Uday Vaidya, ORNL Senior R&D Scientist Soydan Ozcan, and various teammates and colleagues, explored several environmental impacts (11 impacts including embodied energy) of such coffee pods compared to conventional ones along their supply chain. Ultimately, the compostable pods proved to be least impactful compared to the plastic pods while including a viable industrial-scale composting site at the end of its life (EOL).
“Ultimately, I would like to see decisions made and in turn institutional change driven by such self-assessed life cycle assessments,” said Komal. “Especially in industries wherein composting for biobased composites and/or products may be incorporated to create a truly circular pathway for such material flows.”
See Komal and her composite sustainability project in action with IACMI interns here. Summer 2020 Intern Isaac Sloan: Telling the IACMI Story
Colorado State University Marketing Major Isaac Sloan is spending much of his time this summer helping tell the story of how IACMI and its network of communities –industry, academia, and government agencies –are advancing the composites industry.
As a member of IACMI’s Summer 2020 Internship program, Isaac is supporting the organization’s overall communications, marketing and member outreach activities. He is no stranger to IACMI. Last summer, he served as an IACMI Sustainability and Marketing Intern based in Knoxville at the University of Tennessee where he performed life cycle analysis and energy calculations for carbon fiber recycling methods.
In addition to studying marketing, the junior at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, Co., is focusing on sustainable energy. He started his internship June 1 and will be working remotely through August. An avid writer, photographer and videographer, Isaac is putting his communication skills to good use creating content for IACMI’s website and social media channels.
A native of Colorado, Isaac may just have a good source for writing tips about high-performance composites... his father, Jeff, is editor-in-chief at CompositesWorld Magazine.
In The News
Merlin Theodore – IACMI Materials and Processing Technology Area Director and the Director of Carbon Fiber Technology Facility IACMI Members Diligently Working to Combat COVID-19
Technological innovation in advanced manufacturing is helping our nation overcome the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Laboratory and industry partners have heeded President Trump’s call to dramatically accelerate timelines to bolster the domestic manufacturing sector and redirect resources to areas of critical need.
Owens Corning Earns No. 1 Ranking on 100 Best Corporate Citizens List
Kudos to IACMI member Owens Corning for being ranked No. 1 on the 100 Best Corporate Citizens list for 2020. The company was also No. 1 in 2019, and is one of a small number of companies that have earned the honor twice. This is the sixth consecutive year Owens Corning has been named to the list. The annual list recognizes the standout global environmental, social and governance (ESG) performances of the largest U.S.-based public companies. The companies are ranked based on a blend of performance and disclosure.
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