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SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS

Polymers are the most widely used advanced materials and provide great potential for manufacturing innovation in the 21st century. The CRC for Polymers has consolidated Australia’s diverse national strengths in advanced polymer technologies and made them an accessible competitive advantage for companies with a manufacturing presence in Australia.

Some of the achievements, outputs and outcomes of the CRC for Polymers are summarised below.

Commercialisation

Licensed technologies

Research undertaken by the CRC for Polymers (CRC-P) has resulted in 16 licensed technologies during the past 15 years. Five of these licence agreements were completed in 2010-11. The research activities that led to these developments were initiated and driven by end-user companies. They all involved multidisciplinary collaborations with several Australian universities and research organisations. The impacts have included enhanced international competitiveness and increased sales and profits for Australian companies. Even more significantly, the use of products based on CRC-P technologies has delivered a wide range of spill over benefits that include productivity gains and the creation of high-skill high-value manufacturing jobs.

Some articles on specific licensed technologies can be accessed via the links below:

Below are images relating to some of the many products incorporating CRC-P technologies that have been licensed by participants in the CRC-P.

  • Fire performance cables incorporating ceramifying polymers
  • Degradable packaging from renewable resources
Degradable starch-based packaging
  • Degradable polyolefins films for agricultural and industrial applications
Degradable polyethylene agricultural films
  • Technologies for reducing membranes fouling, additives for reducing biofouling of polymer membranes, the one of the left uses one of the addtives and has resisted biofilm formation.
  • Lenses for sunglasses
  • PET food trays for frozen dinners
  • Flow chemistry for producing a specialty chemical

Spin off companies

The Centre created the following two spin-off companies:

Ceram Polymerik was established in  September 2004 to commercialise the ceramifying polymer technology in  passive fire performance applications (including seals, and
components in  fixtures) other than cable products.
Advanced Polymerik, which is  completing the commercialisation of the intellectual property portfolio  developed by the CRC-P during the 1999-2005 funding period.

Commercialisation Awards

The following national awards for achievements in commercialisation were received:

Olex and the CRC-P received a CRC Association 2004 Award for Excellence in Innovation for the ceramifying  technology from the Minister for Science, The Honourable Peter McGauran,  at the Association’s Annual Conference in June 2004.
The CRC-P received the 2004 Award  for Best Collaboration involving a CRC for the development of ceramifying  polymer technology at the Business/Higher Education Round Table Awards for  Outstanding Achievement in Collaboration in Research & Development and  Education & Training held in November 2004.

Education

One of the Centre’s most enduring legacies will be its postgraduate students. The Centre has provided funding support for more than sixty students who have completed their PhD degrees. The CRC-P experience has assisted many postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows along their paths to successful careers. A survey of a total of 50 postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows from the CRC-P found that their first employers after leaving the CRC-P were companies in industry (40%), positions with universities (40%) and positions with government research organisations (CSIRO or ANSTO, 20%).

One of the CRC-P’s PhD students, David Nisbet, received the 2008 CRC Early Career Award for the best long presentation to the CRC Association’s annual conference, click here

More information on the achievements of the CRC-P’s Education program can be found on the following link, click here

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