+1 - Solvay

organized in November 2007 –
each developed on a cross-entity
basis and some involving external
partnerships – also highlighted the
wide range of possible applications.
Grouping and synthesizing of this
knowledge and expertise within
one and the same entity, and then
re-disseminating it throughout
the Group is without doubt the
best way of generating even more
synergies. It also promotes interdisciplinary
cooperation, which
is a vital factor in the creation of
innovative products.
The five award-winning
projects:
• development of materials for
the new generation of liquid
crystal displays (LCDs) and
very high resolution thin film
transistors (TFT);
• better distribution of nanocomposites
in very high
temperature polymers;
• analysis of the effects of
nanoparticles on the properties
of polyamides;
• incorporation of nanoparticles
in certain polymers as early as
possible in the manufacturing
process;
• integrating nanostructures in
fuel cell catalysts.
2007, a year full in
high-level events,
honored by the
contributions of
Nobel prize-winners
In September, Solvay NBD and the
Center for Organic Photonics and
Electronics (COPE) of the Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta
(USA) organized at Metz (France)
the 9 th European conference on
Molecular Electronics.
The 350 participants included three
Nobel prize-winners in Chemistry
as well as representatives from the
most prestigious research institutes
of Europe, the USA and Asia.
Professor Jean-Marie Lehn, from
the Université Louis Pasteur at
Strasbourg (France), holds the 1987
Nobel Prize for Chemistry, for his
body of work on hollow molecules.
As far back as 1968 he synthesized
three-dimensional hollow molecules
able to englobe cations (cryptands),
marking the start of what he himself
named supramolecular chemistry.
Alan Heeger of the Department of
Physics, University of California
at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara,
CA (USA), was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Chemistry in 2000 for
“the discovery and development
of conductive polymers”.
Robert R. Grubbs of the California
Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
CA (USA), was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Chemistry in 2005 for
his work on the “development of
metathesis in organic synthesis”.
In November, the third edition of
the “Solvay Science for Innovation”
conference took as its subject
“Building up complex
materials: from nanoscale
to end-use properties”.
During these three working
days, some 200 researchers
New Business Development
and managers from within the
Group were able to better identify
and understand the differing
relationships between the
nanometric structures and final
properties of Solvay materials and
products, and to compare our
current knowledge with the latest
outside developments in this area.
These Science Days were honoured
with presentations by Professor
Jean-Marie Lehn (see above) and
by Professor Robert Laughlin, of
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
(USA), who took the Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1988 for the discovery of
an electronic effect now known as
the “fractional quantum Hall effect”.
This conference ended with the
award of prizes, including
EUR 200 000 support grants to
each of the five projects considered
by a board of specialists to be the
most innovative and to offer the
highest potential value to the Group.
Also in May 2007, 25 young
researchers from Brussels
universities received prizes at the
15 th Solvay Awards ceremony.
The ensuing science afternoon
focused around two eminent
academics, Professor Stephen
Hawking, Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics, Cambridge (UK),
mathematician, astrophysicist
and philosopher, a specialist in
the infinitely large, and Sir Harold
Kroto, University of Sussex (UK),
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996, who
discovered fullerenes, which are
new carbon nanostructures with
unsuspected and highly promising
properties.
New Business
Development
Solvay Global Annual Report 2007
53