Foster Receives Prestigious ANTEC Best Paper Award 

Putnam, CT (April 2005) - Foster Corporation is the recipient of the Society of Plastics Engineers' ANTEC Conference 'Best Paper Award'. This award recognizes Foster's development of new polymer technology and presentation of the findings in the Polymer Additives and Modifiers category during the 2004 peer oriented conference.

Foster's paper, 'Flame Retarding Nylon 12 Elastomers Using Nanoclays as Char Forming Flame Retardant', concludes that nanoclay can be added to an otherwise non-flame retardant nylon polymer to achieve a UL-94 rating at 1/8 inch sample thickness. Nanoclays are extremely small platelet structures (less than a nanometer in thickness) that can be evenly dispersed throughout the polymer matrix with performance compounding. As a result, flame retardant properties increase with minor detrimental effects on physical properties. A full version of the paper and data is available for download from ANTEC 2004 at www.4spe.org.

Each year hundreds of papers are presented at the ANTEC conference. Papers are categorized by technology and reviewed by a Technical Program Committee. Papers are evaluated for originality, technical depth, significance to the plastics industry, and effectiveness of presentation by a group of experts in the field. Foster's 2004 paper was reviewed by experts in polymer fillers, nanotechnology, nylon, inorganic chemistry, plastic processing and flame retardant technology.

According to a spokesperson for the ANTEC 2004 review committee, "Foster's paper on flame retarding nylon with nanoclay is a must read for all plastic technologists, especially those interested in flame retarding polymers. The quality of the paper is excellent and consistent with previous Best Paper Awards."

The Society of Plastics Engineers 2005 ANTEC Conference will be held in May in Boston, MA. Foster Corporation will present a paper entitled 'Development of Lubricious Compounds for Biomedical Applications' in the Medical Plastics category.

Foster Corporation is a global market leader in design, development and delivery of specialty polymer solutions for biomedical markets. The company also provides a broad range of material, process and design contract engineering services for these target markets. For more information, please call 860.928.4102.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dan Lazas
610.458.2038