Anil K. Bhowmick, Ph.D., a research professor at the University of Houston’s International Polymer & Soft Matter Center within the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, will be the recipient of the 2022 Melvin Mooney Distinguished Technology Award.
The award, from the American Chemical Society's Rubber Division and sponsored by Lion Elastomers, honors someone who has exhibited exceptional technical competency by making significant and repeated contributions to rubber science and technology. He will be recognized at the Spring Technical Meeting, which takes place April 25 to April 28, 2022, in Warrensville Heights, Ohio.
Bhowmick noted that he was happy to accept the award, noting the accomplishments of the man it was named after.
“I feel great, very happy and excited, as this is one of the most prestigious awards of the Rubber Division,” Bhowmick said. “Dr. Melvin Mooney was an American physicist and rheologist and was a very renowned person. He developed the Mooney viscometer used for measuring the viscosity of rubber compounds during curing and other equipment for the polymer industry. He also developed the Mooney-Rivlin constitutive law describing the hyperelastic stress–strain behavior of rubber.”
Bhowmick was previously a Professor of Eminence at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kharagpur, India. Bhowmick has made seminal contributions to the development of rubber science and engineering. His work has covered polymer nanocomposites, thermoplastic elastomers, sustainable materials and technology, failure and degradation, adhesion science and rubber technology.
Bhowmick’s highly cited work focuses on the development and properties of a series of polymer-based nanocomposites using various nanoparticles, such as clay, nanotubes and graphene. Structure property relationships of the nanocomposites have been elucidated, and applications of some of these nanocomposites have been successful.
Bhowmick also completed pioneering research work on the development of high temperature thermoplastic elastomers from polyamide, poly (ethylene terephthalate), poly (phenylene ether) and polyvinylidene fluoride.
Earlier this year, Bhowmick received the James L. White Innovation Award from the Polymer Processing Society. He joined the faculty of the Cullen College of Engineering in 2019, after more than 30 years at IIT. His current research is focused on the behavior of polymers under extreme conditions, polymer nanocomposites and thermoplastic elastomers.