- Open to U.S. and Canadian Ph.D. students and young researchers
- Winning team receives trip to International Summer Course in Ludwigshafen, Germany
BASF is sponsoring a North American Science Competition as part of its 150th anniversary. The competition aims to solve the following challenge: What chemistries can be used to create lightweight solutions with improved end of life management?
Open to Ph.D. students and young researchers in the U.S. and Canada (excluding Quebec), in teams of two-four participants, the competition encourages innovative and game-changing ideas that address global lightweight challenges in three areas: Food, Smart Energy and Urban Living.
The top five teams will be awarded $5,000 to present their proof-of-concept to BASF executives June 4 and 5 in Florham Park, N.J. The winning team will win an all-expense paid trip to the BASF International Summer Course in Ludwigshafen, Germany in August.
"We're looking to move from a cradle to grave mentality to a cradle to cradle mentality," said Elvira Stesikova, Ph.D. MBA, BASF Project Manager. "We see an increased demand for innovative lightweight solutions that can tackle many of these challenges and pave the way to a sustainable future."
By the year 2050, the population on the planet is expected to reach nine billion. This presents a number of unique challenges and translates into an increased demand for food, energy and materials. Past technological advances significantly increased materials performance, capabilities and production output to keep up with the demand thus far. Today's technology offers very limited options when it comes to reuse and recycling. When such products and materials reach the end of life cycle, their contribution to waste becomes equally significant.
It is evident that the current "cradle to grave" approach to materials design contains inefficiencies, generates waste and cannot be sustained. This competition is focused on finding novel solutions to design and produce advanced lightweight materials that later can be reused – moving to a holistic approach from "cradle to cradle."
Proposals will be accepted until March 18, 2015.
www.basf.us
