The Selection Committee of the IULTCS Research Commission (IUR) is pleased to announce the recipients of the Young Leather Scientist Grants, the basic grant and the award for sustainability and environmental protection – the first time there has been two awards. The monetary grants help support the work of young talented individuals in the leather sector and the IULTCS gratefully acknowledges sponsorship by the Lear Corporation and TFL.
The winner of the €1,500 basic grant is Catherine Ann Maidment from New Zealand Leather and Shoe Research Association, in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Catherine Maidment will address the causes for loose and tight leathers. She will correlate this important structural-mechanical behaviour with the profiles of protein compositions of different processing states in the beamhouse measured by liquid chromatography, coupled with mass spectroscopy.
Shahruk Nur-A-Tomal, educated at Kulna University of Engineering and Technology in Bangladesh, and currently at the University of New South Wales, Australia, is the winner of the €1,000 grant for sustainability and environmental protection. He will investigate the use of leather shavings and cuttings as a reducing agent in steel production. The treatment of these by-products of the leather industry is still a challenge and would close the last gap in the material cycles of the leather industry.
Michael Meyer, the IUR Chair, said: “This year we have received around 15 innovative research topics. The overall quality of the applications has been at a high level and the decision was not easy.” It is an indication of the grant's growing importance.
