Dozens of industry leaders, as well as Georgia Tech faculty and students converged on the Global Learning Center March 7-8 for the Renewable Bioproducts Institute annual executive conference Growing Resources Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow: People, Technologies and Ideas.

This year’s conference focused on the current state of science in raw biomaterials as society addresses critical social, economic and environmental concerns and development priorities. Introducing the People, Technologies and Ideas which make up RBI, an array of research faculty, RBI Fellows and Georgia Tech leadership discussed the advancements being developed to address the needs of a growing population and reduce the reliance on non-renewable resources.

Nearly 40 of RBI’s Fellows, Ph.D. students sponsored by RBI’s endowment, participated in the annual poster competition. The session is held in conjunction with an evening reception and allows industry, academia, and government guests to get an up-close look at the research being conducted through the RBI Fellowships and discuss ideas with the students face to face.

This year, RBI named six winners. They are as follows:

• Chad Hume, ME, "Design and manufacture of press fabric structures for improved dewatering." Advisor: David Rosen
• Lu Jiang, ChBE, "Two-step process to create 'roll-off' non-wetting paper surfaces." Advisors: Victor Breedveld, Dennis Hess
• Bailey Risteen, ChBE, "Enhanced alignment of water-soluble polythiophene using cellulose nanocrystals as a liquid crystal template." Advisors: Elsa Reichmanis, Paul Russo, Mohan Srinivassarao
• Augustus Lang, MSE, "Paper-based electrochromic devices incorporating inkjet-printed PEDOT:PSS electrodes." Advisors: John Reynolds, Robert Moon
• Huibin Chang, MSE, "Toward green nanocomposite fibers." Advisor: Satish Kumar
• Ya Dong Chiang, ChBE, "Porous materials and processes for DMF/butanol separations." Advisors: Sankar Nair, Ryan Lively

To read full abstracts of these and other posters entered into the contest, read the catalog. Full details about executive conference can be found here.