LOVELAND, OH – Sirrus Inc., a developer of novel electron-deficient monomers and oligomers, announced that Mengfei Huang, a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, was awarded a Pflaumer Honors for Innovation award at the Eastern Coatings Show (ECS) for her research on methylene malonate monomer synthesis.

The Pflaumer Honors for Innovation awards recognize the top two technical papers presented at ECS, which this year took place May 14-15 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Huang’s winning paper — “Synthesis of High-Performance UV Curable Crosslinked Coating Films Via Grafting of HEMA Functionalized Methylene Malonates” — proposes a new method for synthesizing next-generation, UV-curable and water-based emulsion polymers and polymer dispersions using methylene malonates as a key component.

Huang is a third-year PhD candidate in UMass Amherst’s Department of Chemical Engineering. She researches functional polymers and novel monomers, including UV-curable and functional latex coatings, inorganic and organic nanoparticle encapsulation, and novel emulsion polymers.

Sponsored by Pflaumer Brothers Inc. of Ewing, New Jersey, the Pflaumer Honors for Innovation awards promote the development of new, innovative technologies in the coatings industry. Members of the ECS technical committee screened each of the 42 submitted technical papers. The two winners — including Huang — were selected based on several criteria, including innovation, professionalism, technology competence and preparation.