Two Germany entities, the Maschinenfabrik Gustav Eirich Company of Hardheim and the European Center for Refractories (ECRef) of Hohr-Grenzhausen have announced the opening of a competition for the Gustav Eirich Award. The award is designed to promote the excellence of young academics and support innovative ideas in the refractory industry. The goal of the award is to advance contributions to the long-term success of companies in the refractory production and application industries.

The topics the award organizers want to consider for the awards are the refractory-based subjects of raw materials, materials and components, application technologies, as well as topics concerning the study of materials under the terms of “high-temperature materials” or “the modern refractory.”

The awards will be offered for dissertations and independent research work with a scientific content. The scientific content can be related to doctorates or post-doctoral work. The work should have been completed not more than two years ago.

Eirich Awards will be presented to three candidates based on their presentation of environmental aspects, energy and other resources; the potential for significant impacts in the industry, design and modeling for practical application; and the processing aspects of the development.

First prize will be €3,000, second prize will be €2,000 and third prize will be €1,000. The awards will be presented at the Annual International Colloquium on Refractories in Aachen, Germany Oct. 19-20, 2011. The top three award winners will also present their papers as an invited lecture at that annual meeting.

The organizers say that to be considered, interested individuals must submit an abstract by May 31, 2011 meeting the following guidelines:

  • Curriculum description on a single page.
  • The abstract may be a maximum of three printed pages.
  • Two additional figures may be included to complete the abstract.
  • Text will be Arial font, size 10 and formatted with 1.5 line spacing.
  • Printed on A4 paper with margins of 2.5 cm.

ICACC’11 attendees — Eirich representatives say they will have entry forms for the Eirich Awards at their booth at next week’s ICACC Expo in Daytona Beach, Fla. Eirich will be at booth 402, and company representatives say they will be able to assist with any questions.

The abstracts will be evaluated by prominent members of the Refractory Industry. On the “economy jury” is Manuel Miranda Martinez, Fundación ITMA, Spain; Adam Molins, REFRASIL s.r.o., Czechia; Christopher Parr, Kerneos Alumina Technologies, France. The “science jury” is composted of Christos Aneziris, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany; William Lee, Imperial College London, U.K.; and Jacques Poirier, Ecole Polytechnique de l´Université d´Orléans, France.

The organizers of this award are Stephan Eirich, Maschinenfabrik Gustav Eirich GmbH & Co KG, Germany and  Peter Quirmbach, ECREF European Centre for Refractories gem.GmbH, Germany.

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