Dr. Mark Soucek of the University of Akron, Department of Polymer Engineering will receive the Roy W. Tess Award in Coatings for 2016. 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.
Dr. Soucek began his academic career 1993 at North Dakota State University at Fargo, ND. He was Assistant and Associate Professor at NDSU. He joined the University of Akron, Department of Polymer Engineering, as Associate Professor in 2001 and is now Professor. He has 15 issued U.S. patents and pending patent applications and has over 150 per peer reviewed publications and of which 15 are chapters in books, and 34 additional publications in proceedings and preprints. His research is well funded by government grants and industry contracts with a wide range of industrial companies.
Dr. Soucek’s research interests are quite wide and varied and include the following:
Latexes, Powder Coatings, UV-Curable Powder Coatings, Kinetic and Reaction Mechanism Studies of Cycloaliphatic Epoxides, Latexes Crosslinked with Cycloaliphatic Epoxides, Protective Space Coatings, High Solids and Water-Reducible Alkyds, UV-Curable Coatings, Inorganic/Organic Hybrid Coatings, Coatings from Renewable Resources. Auto-oxidative Curing Mechanism of Drying Oils, Plasma deposition of High Performance Coatings, Corrosion Resistant Polyurethane Coating,, Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Catalysis. Prof. Soucek is a recognized leader in drying oil technologies especially with bio-based feedstocks (25 publications) and has been a leader in the renaissance of alkyd technology (15 publications) where he organized and edited a special issue of Progress in Organic coatings devoted to the subject. His most significant contribution to coatings science and technology is his work on environmentally benign coatings based on non-petroleum feedstocks (over 70 publications). This contribution has involved extensive work with industry to develop green technologies.
He is also one of the leading authorities in reactive diluent technology where VOCs are replaced with bio-based liquids which dissolve the polymeric binder and also participate in film formation by reactive crosslinking reactions (15 publications). Most recently Prof. Soucek has worked on isocyanate free technology using cyclic carbonates and acrylic cross-linkable, cycloaliphatic epoxides as replacements for bisphenol A in food- contactable coatings. Dr. Soucek has a long collaboration with the Air Force to replace chromium primers and coatings on steel and aluminum substrates for corrosion protection utilizing inorganic/organic hybrid coatings.
Dr. Soucek’s contributions have been well recognized by the coatings community with two Roon awards and a Gordon award (best paper) in 2000 as well as two Gordon Award finalists and 2 honorable mentions for the Gordon Award (2004, 2005). In 2004 he was awarded the Innovation Award by Radtech for his work in UV-curable coatings. Dr. Soucek also has received a JPCL Editor’s award for self-stratified coatings from the SSPC in 2014 He has served the coatings community through service on the technical Committee of FSCT and presented many short courses at ICE-FSCT. He served three years as technical chair for the Cleveland Coatings Society (CCS) and has served as President, vice-President and Treasurer of CCS.
Dr. Soucek will receive the Tess Award from Dr. Qinghuang Lin, Chair of the PMSE Division, in August, 2016 during the 252nd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, MA. An evening reception in honor of the Tess award recipient and other PMSE and POLY award winners also will be held.
The Tess Award is presented annually by the Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering in recognition of outstanding contributions to coatings science, engineering and technology. It is funded by a grant to the Division from Dr. and Mrs. Roy W. Tess. The purpose of the award is to encourage interest and progress in coatings science technology and engineering and to recognize significant contributions to the field. The Award consists of a plaque and a $3000 cash prize.