Midland, MI - October 18, 2005
James C. Stevens, Ph.D., a Research Fellow at The Dow Chemical Company has received the 2006 American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in Industrial Chemistry. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to industrial chemical research in North America. Stevens will be presented with the award at the 231st ACS national meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, held in March 2006.
"Dr. Stevens is an internationally recognized organometallic chemist who has made huge contributions to the field," says Ronald Yates, senior program manager at Dow. "He's being recognized for the discovery and development of new single-site catalyst systems, which allow the production of novel polyolefin structures that have become the basis of several commercialized product families and over 1 billion pounds per year in sales."
"Over the last 15 years, Jim has helped rewrite the rules in the chemistry of polyolefins," says Kurt W. Swogger, vice president of Plastics R&D for Dow. "His innovative chemistries in the 'everything has been invented' world of polyolefins have and will create tremendous value for Dow, the polymer industry and all of its customers."
Stevens' Accomplishments
Currently a research fellow at Dow, Stevens' R&D work in the polyolefin catalyst field began in the late 1970's when he joined Dow Central Research. Under his leadership, a small group of chemists focused on synthesizing catalysts in the 1980's. By the late 1980's, a single-site, constrained geometry catalyst (CGC) system was discovered.
"With Stevens' leadership, the Polyolefins Business of Dow quickly realized the importance of the CGC technology for the polyolefin industry," says Yates. "An R&D team was formed at Dow in 1992 under his direction to further develop and commercialize Dow's CGC polyolefin technology, which we later trademarked INSITE™ Technology."
As a driving force in catalyst development, Stevens also helped explore new polymer structures that resulted in a variety of new and successful polyolefin product families, including:
- ELITE* enhanced polyethylene (recognized by an R&D 100 Award in 1999)
- AFFINITY™ polyolefin plastomers
- INDEX* interpolymers (recognized by an R&D 100 Award in 2000)
- ENGAGE™ polyolefin elastomers
- NORDEL IP™ EPDM
Most recently, Stevens has led the Dow team in a partnership with Symyx Technologies, which is focused on using high-throughput experimental methods for the discovery of polyolefin catalysts. The resulting discoveries formed the basis of VERSIFY* plastomers and elastomers which Dow launched commercially in late 2004. This new family of propylene-ethylene copolymers enables unusual property combinations in films, fibers and molded parts.
Stevens has received numerous external awards for single site CGC technology, including:
- The Michigan Saginaw Valley Patent Lawyers Association's 1992 Inventor of the Year Award
- The 1994 National Inventor of the Year Award, sponsored by the Intellectual Property Owners Association, presented in the United States Congress
- Industry Week Magazine's 1994 "50 R&D Stars"
- 2004 ACS Delaware Section "Carothers Award," named in honor of Wallace Carothers, the inventor of nylon
About the ACS
The American Chemical Society was founded in 1876 and today has more than 158,000 members across all chemistry fields and degree levels. Recognizing premier chemical professionals in extraordinary ways, the ACS awards are renowned throughout the scientific world and in 2006, covered approximately 50 categories of expertise.
About The Dow Chemical Company
Dow is a leader in science and technology, providing innovative chemical, plastic and agricultural products and services to many essential consumer markets. With annual sales of $40 billion, Dow serves customers in 175 countries and a wide range of markets that are vital to human progress: food, transportation, health and medicine, personal and home care, and building and construction, among others. Committed to the principles of sustainable development, Dow and its 43,000 employees seek to balance economic, environmental and social responsibilities. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted.
For Editorial Information:
Kathleen Davis
The Dow Chemical Company
(989) 636-2760
