Sustainable Fillers for Elastomers

Prof James Busfield FREng FIMMM FHEA

Head of the Soft Matter Group, Queen Mary University of London

James has been the Head of the Soft Matter Group at QMUL since 1994. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2020 and a National Teaching Fellow in 2009. He has also been recognised for his research by the award of the George Stafford Whitby Award (awarded to outstanding international teachers of polymer science and recognising innovative research by the ACS ) in 2021, the Colwyn Medal (the premier medal for rubber research awarded by the IOM3) in 2009 and the Sparks-Thomas Award (recognising outstanding contributions and innovations in the field of elastomers by the ACS) in 2010. Before 1994, James designed suspension components for an automotive industry supply company, designing systems for companies such as Jaguar, Volvo and Mercedes

: https://www.sems.qmul.ac.uk/staff/j.busfield
: james-busfield-a8b1931b
: @jamesbusfield

Stephen Millington BSc FIMMM

Development Scientist, ARTIS

Steve joined ARTIS in 2011 and has nearly 40 years’ experience of working with a broad range of materials, including adhesives, sealants, textiles, rubbers, paper and board, fibre reinforcements, and composite materials. He began his career with the Ministry of Defence at Woolwich Arsenal before moving to DERA at Farnborough and, eventually, to QinetiQ. At ARTIS Steve has primary responsibility for coordinating support to development projects within Avon Protection (ARTIS’ parent company), covering both product and compound development. He also supplies in-service product support to Avon across a range of non-metallic materials and processes, as well as to external customers from a variety of industry sectors. In addition, Steve is responsible for ARTIS’ quality management system and its compliance to ISO 9001.

Steve is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM) and, as well as being a board member of the IOM3 Elastomers Group, he is also a board member, and immediate past-Chair, of the IOM3 Society for Adhesion and Adhesives and a member of the NPL Industrial Advisory Group for composites, adhesives and polymers.

: stephen-millington-73b69029

Joseph Hallett

Technical Service Manager, Birla Carbon

Dr Hallett has worked in the polymer industry for over 25 years in a number of roles including product design, research and development and management including 15 years with Birla Carbon. He is currently responsible for supporting Birla Carbons Tyre Customers in the EMEA region.

Marinela Crisan

Technical Marketing Manager, RFF, UPM Biochemicals Sales GmbH

Marinela Crisan currently holds the role of Technical Sales Manager, Renewable Functional Fillers at UPM Biochemicals. She holds a Bachelor´s in Chemical Engineering and has 15 years of experience in the rubber industry. Before joining UPM, she covered different R&D functions for rubber goods, synthetic rubber and cable manufacturers.

Dr Kunal Manna

Research Fellow, University of Warwick

Dr. Kunal Manna is currently working as a research fellow at Warwick manufacturing group (WMG) in the University of Warwick. Dr. Manna has developed his research interest on sustainable fillers in manufacturing of bio-based elastomeric composites. Prior to this, Dr. Manna has explored vitrimer chemistry in recycling and upcycling of polymer in IISc Bangalore as a postdoctoral research fellow. Dr. Manna has completed his PhD on Polymer Nanocomposites in EMI Shielding application from IIT Kharagpur, India.