Nouryon Announces Winners of 2019 Imagine Chemistry Focused on Sustainable Solutions

Nouryon (formerly AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals) held the 2019 Imagine Chemistry collaborative innovation competition, with eight winning ideas including environment-friendly membranes, miniature sensors, and surfactants derived from plants. The competition received over 160 applications from 30 countries, and winners were selected from 14 finalists at a three-day event held at the company's R&D&I center in Deventer, the Netherlands. Joint Development Agreements (JDAs) were signed with the competition's two overall winners. Sironix Renewables from the United States signed a joint development agreement with Nouryon and Imagine Chemistry partner Unilever for plant-based surfactant production technology. The other company to sign a joint development agreement with Nouryon was Ionomr from Canada for environment-friendly membrane technology.

The awards received by the other six groups are as follows:

• Ingu Solutions (Canada) - Supply agreement with Nouryon for miniature pipeline sensors.
• RISE (Sweden) - Research agreement with Nouryon on nanoparticle surface modification technology.
• Intelligent Fluids (Germany) - Research agreement with Nouryon and partnership support from ICOS Capital for physics-based cleaning fluids.
• Cambridge Carbon Capture (United Kingdom) - Partnership support from Lux Research for technology converting CO₂ into saleable minerals.
• Arenal Process Control Solutions (Netherlands) - Chemical research support for ultrasonic and thermal sensors in monitoring production processes.
• University of Sheffield and Entomics (United Kingdom) - Chemical research support from Nouryon for insect-derived surfactants.