Perkin Medal Goes To James Stevens

James C. Stevens, a chemist and research fellow in performance polymers and chemicals R&D at Dow Chemical, is receiving this year's Perkin Medal. The award event on Sept. 21 also marks the centennial of the prestigious industry medal.

Given annually by the America Section of the London-based Society of Chemical Industry, the Perkin Medal recognizes innovations and contributions in applied chemistry that result in outstanding commercial developments. It was established and first awarded in 1906 to honor Sir William Henry Perkin for his discovery of the first synthetic aniline dye and the substantial change it brought to the dye and broader chemical industries.

Winning the award is "huge," Stevens says. "I can't believe people consider me able to stand among the others who have been recognized. And receiving it in the 100th year makes it extra special." He is an inventor on more than 75 U.S. patents and has won numerous other awards both within and outside of Dow.

Stevens, 53, has been at Dow since finishing his doctoral work in inorganic chemistry at Ohio State University in 1979. At Dow, his efforts have been instrumental in the discovery and commercial development of the company's Insite polymer technology and constrained-geometry catalysts. Dow uses these catalysts to produce about 2 billion lb of polyolefins per year. Since 1993, Stevens has been based at Dow's Freeport, Texas, site.

His current work includes the application of combinatorial and high-throughput methods to catalyst research. Through collaborative work with Symyx Technologies, he has been involved with the discovery of a new class of hafnium-based single-site catalysts for the polymerization of propylene and ethylene. In 2004, Dow commercialized its Versify plastomers and elastomers, which are made with these catalysts.

Recently, a team with which Stevens has been working created a new controlled approach to making block copolymers catalytically by shuttling growing polymer chains between catalysts (C&EN, May 8, page 9). In June, Dow introduced olefin block copolymers employing this technology under the Infuse name.