We appreciate your interest in our program.  Unfortunately, due to the unexpected COVID-19 pandemic and the disruption to participating educational institutions and our company, the contest cannot be completed on the original schedule.  Therefore,  we have been forced to postpone the contest until the worldwide situation returns to a calmer and safer state. Although we do not know when the crisis will be over, we are hoping to relaunch the contest in the fall.  Please stay safe and healthy!

Challenge

We (MacDermid Enthone, Inc. and affiliated businesses under Element Solutions Inc. “ESI”) are soliciting proposals for innovative surface finishing involving metal coatings. We are in the business of applying metal finishes in order to bring decorative, protective, and functional characteristics to surfaces. Whether it is a wear-resistant hard chrome surface added to a hydraulic piston on earth-moving equipment or a copper trace on a circuit board in the computer of a high performance automobile, we specialize in putting metal in places where it can add value.

Being chemists and engineers, we are inherently curious. We are also endlessly fascinated by creative and new perspectives. So we would like to be in touch with people that look at problems differently and see opportunities where others have missed them. We hope you are one of them. In order to find out, we invite you to submit your ideas for metal coating technology development.

The proposal can be for a new alloy, a new metal plating method, a new application of a current metal finishing technique, or a research program to answer an interesting question. It just has to involve some aspect of a metal coating on a dissimilar surface.

And there’s a US$15,000 grant that goes to the winner.  Want to learn more…?