Holst Centre's partner Huntsman wins JEC Asia Innovation Award 2010
Posted on Oct 25, 2010
In cooperation with Holst Centre and Oreca, Huntsman won the JEC Asia Innovation Award 2010 for Electrical and Electronics Engineering. The award was issued during the annual conference in Singapore. In june 2010 during the 24 hours Le Mans race, the ORECA 01 car from French racing team Oreca used rear view mirrors with an integrated thin film flexible OLED-lighting device on the back. Since flexible OLED lighting will only be available on the market (and in our homes) within a few years, the initiators of the project - Huntsman Advanced Materials and Holst Centre - considered the integration in the composite material of the race car as a great success.
JEC is a French company which is dedicated to promoting composites internationally. It supports the development of these materials by fostering knowledge transfer and exchanges between suppliers and users. The JEC innovation program was created in 1998 with the goal of promoting innovation. Through this program, the JEC Group projects and promotes successful innovation strategies onto the international scene throughout the year. This top-level competition for Innovation is a focus of attention in the international composite market. Each year, a jury of renowned international experts chooses the best composite innovations, based on their technical interest, market potential, partnership, financial impact and originality. The decision to give prominence to this project was based on his atypical nature and various noteworthy aspects.
In this project, OLEDS were integrated in the composite structure of the rear view mirrors on the ORECA racing car. OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) are paper-thin, flexible and lightweight devices. Compared to conventional light sources OLEDs consume up to 70% less energy, making them prime candidates for the next generation of lighting. Before flexible OLED lighting and signage devices can be commercialized, there are some important research challenges to be solved. For using OLEDs on the car, there was one critical step to overcome, which is overcoming there sensitivity to moisture, and oxygen. They had to be protected from these in order to maintain a long lifetime. So, the success of the OLED integration in the car depended on the encapsulation technology and Araldite® composite materials of Huntsman Advanced Materials. During the race, the coatings developed by Huntsman provided the right level of protection.
This award reflects the successful integration of OLEDs in the composite structure of the rear view mirrors of the ORECA 01. This can be seen as the first step towards a genuine alternative to traditional light sources.
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