This year's R&D 100 Award recipients represent a diverse array of technology advances, from an artificial retina—to eco-friendly fabric—to a process for making biofuel out of waste.
An artificial retina developed by a consortium of national labs, universities, and industry organizations was recognized as one of the most technologically significant products. |
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R&D Magazine the 47th Annual R&D 100 Awards salute the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace over the past year. Recipients will be honored at an Awards Banquet in Orlando on November 12, 2009.
Read descriptions of the 2009 winners.
The winning of an R&D 100 Award provides a mark of excellence known to industry, government, and academia as evidence that a new product has merit as one of the most innovative new ideas of the year. This award can build awareness and is often the crucial initial push a new product needs to compete successfully in the marketplace.
"The R&D 100 Awards honor the latest technology developments that are designed to meet societal, scientific, or business challenges facing us today—and tomorrow," said Rita Peters, editorial director of R&D Magazine.
The seats in the Ford Mustang feature an industry-first: use of functionalized soybean oil in the manufacture of flexible, polyurethane foam. |
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Since 1963, the R&D 100 Awards have identified revolutionary technologies newly introduced to the market. Many of these have become household names, helping shape everyday life for many Americans. These include the flashcube (1965), the automated teller machine (1973), the halogen lamp (1974), the fax machine (1975), the liquid crystal display (1980), the printer (1986), the Kodak Photo CD (1991), the Nicoderm antismoking patch (1992), Taxol anticancer drug (1993), lab on a chip (1996), and HDTV (1998).
The spirit of innovation born of creativity and diligent scientific research was reflected again in this year’s winning organizations. Widely recognized names such as Ford, Dow Chemical, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Agilent, Hitachi, Battelle, and Intel all won R&D 100 Awards this year. Strong representation was seen from government research facilities including Argonne, Brookhaven, Idaho, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, and Sandia national labs and NASA. Other winning entries were developed by R&D teams at Kansas State Univ., Novelx, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Again this year, winning entries originated from around the world, including Taiwan, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, and China.
Winners of the R&D 100 Awards are selected by an independent judging panel and the editors of R&D Magazine. The publication and its online portal serve research scientists, engineers, and other technical staff members at high tech industrial companies and public and private laboratories around the world.