Sakai wins International Award; SPE names Antec award winners

Bethel, Conn. — The Society of Plastics Engineers named three people who will win awards at Antec 2017 — including the International Award, to Tadamoto Sakai, an expert on compounding and processing.

SPE will honor the winners at a banquet May 7, the night before Antec starts, in Anaheim, Calif.

Other winners are Mark Wetzel for the Research/Engineering Technology Award, and Ica Manas-Zloczower receiving the Fred Schwab Education Award.

Sakai currently is a visiting professor at his alma mater, Shizuoka University. He also is a consultant in both plastics and rubber technology.

He earned a degree in applied chemistry in 1964 and went to work at Japan Steel Works (JSW), beginning as a machine designer, then becoming a researcher developing polymers and related machinery for fiber-making, injection molding, film making, pelletizing and compounding.

He received a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering in 1983 from Hokkaido University, for his research in twin-screw extrusion. Five years later, JSW named Sakai as head of its Hiroshima Laboratory, where he led developments in several types of processing machinery.

In 1991, Sakai was named director of the board of JSW at the Research/Development Department. He was promoted as an advisory board member of the machinery maker in 1997. He has served as a visiting professor.

He became president of the Japan Society of Polymer Processing in 1998. Later, he played a key role in establishing international meetings.

Sakai has been a member of SPE for more than 30 years. He is an SPE Fellow, the first one from Japan. He won the Heinz Herman Award for Excellence in Twin-Screw Extrusion in 2006 from the SPE Extrusion Division.

Wetzel retired last year from DuPont Co., where he was a technical fellow covering polymer process development, scale-up and analysis. His 37-plus years of experience include fundamentals of extrusion and compounding, extrusion and compounding process development, new product development through process innovations and nanocomposites and the safe handling of nanomaterials.

Since 1995, Wetzel collaborated with many leading academics and practitioners in the field of polymer processing. He has more than 70 publications on things like extrusion process characterization, melting, residence time distribution, nanocomposites and process monitoring and control. He has been a member of SPE's Extrusion Division. SPE named him a Fellow in 2007.

Wetzel has a master's and bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering.

Manas-Zloczower, of Case Western Reserve University, is CWRU's Thomas W. and Nancy P. Seitz Professor of Advanced Materials and Energy, at the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, and the Distinguished University Professor at the Cleveland school.

Before winning SPE's Schwab Award, she earned the 2012 George S. Whitby Award for Distinguished Teaching and Research, from the Rubber Division of the American Chemical Society.

She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in chemical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute Jassy in Romania, and a doctorate of science in chemical engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Manas-Zloczower was elected and served as president of the International Polymer Processing society for 2011-2013.

She is an SPE Fellow, has served on the board of the Extrusion Division, and was a technical journal editor, who now serves on the book advisory board for Hanser Publications,.

Her research accomplishments have been communicated through more than 80 plenary, keynote and invited lectures around the world. She has done more than 100 invited seminars at companies and universities.

Manas-Zloczower's current research interests include modeling of mechanical properties for nanocomposites, high internal phase emulsions, structure and micromechanics of fine-particle clusters, interfacial engineering strategies for advanced materials processing, dispersive mixing mechanisms and modeling, design and mixing optimization studies for polymer processing equipment.

She has more than 160 publications in peer-reviewed journals and more than 100 published conference proceedings.

She edited Hanser's 2009 book, “Mixing and Compounding of Polymers.”