A team from Dow Coating Solutions R&D and Dow Emulsion Polymers R&D won the Best Paper Award at the TAPPI Conference (PaperCon '08) in Dallas, Texas. John Roper presented the paper on “Foldcrack Resistance For Coated Papers” which represented the work of John and his coauthors: Roger Carlsson, Alam Parvez, Pekka Salminen, Stefan Sandas and Martti Toivakka. This work was a cooperative effort between Abo Akademi in Finland which carried out modeling simulations and Dow which conducted pilot scale experimental studies confirming the model's predictions.
PaperCon ’08 had more than 1,050 registrants, with a sold-out exhibit, program sessions, and well-attended networking activities. Mill and paper company participation at this year's joint TAPPI/PIMA event was the highest in more than a decade.