John has been in the Carbon Fibre manufacturing industry since 1982, working first on the development of Courtaulds large tow precursors and their conversion into Oxidised fibres for RK Carbon Fibres Ltd, which was closely followed by 3, 6, and 12k precursors for conversion to Carbon Fibres.
He became involved in plant construction in 1986 as part of a team working on Technology Transfer Projects in India, China and South Korea. In 1991 he left RK Carbon and was involved in a project in Russia after which, in 1995, he returned to India and China on Technology Transfer Projects for RK Carbon.
In 1997 RK Carbon was acquired by SGL Technic Ltd at which point he was appointed Project Manager for a £25m inward investment project to build two state of the art Carbon Fibre production lines in Scotland.
He left SGL in 2003 to form Milled Carbon Ltd, where they developed the world’s first commercial continuous carbon fibre composite recycling process. The company was later acquired by German metals reclamation company ELG Haniel.
In 2008 he began working on Technology Transfer Projects in Italy, Turkey and Portugal with US and European partners. Further Technology Transfer Projects continued over the next 5 years in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Thailand and India.
In 2014, after over 12 years of discussing collaboration possibilities, he joined Cygnet-Texkimp Ltd in Northwich, Cheshire, where he offers turn-key solutions for Carbon Fibre Production Facilities.
Daniel Pichler has more than 35 years experience in carbon fiber, composite materials, and other high performance materials and components. He is Partner / joint Managing Director of CarbConsult GmbH – specialists in strategy, restructuring and technical consulting in carbon fiber, composite materials, and other specialty materials. CarbConsult’s clients include carbon fiber and composites companies, chemical companies, investor groups and other interested parties in Europe, Asia and the US. Previously, Mr. Pichler has lead carbon fiber businesses and developed business with Hitco Carbon Composites (Armco Inc.), SGL Group, AKSA (now DOWAksa), HCC/Prepreg-ACM and others. Dan lives in Florida and spends summers in Sweden.
Leiliang Zheng leads the composite materials research and APAC Advanced Material content at BloombergNEF. She writes about the emerging materials and manufacturing technologies helping the economic transition to a clean and sustainable future. Before joining Bloomberg, She had extensive experience of materials research, technology and business development in academia and industry. Leiliang holds a Ph.D in Chemistry from the Pennsylvania State University and a MBA from University of Manchester
Andrew Mafeld has over thirty years of experience in the global composites industry covering the carbon, glass and natural fibre sectors. He is the founder and Managing Director of the Connectra group of companies, a Swedish based international business development consultancy working in composites materials.
Prior to founding Connectra in 1998, Andrew held Vice President positions in both commercial and technical areas at Owens Corning, in both Europe and the USA. Earlier in his career, Andrew worked for Procter & Gamble and Monsanto. Andrew has a chemical engineering degree from Imperial College, London, an MBA from INSEAD, France and speaks multiple languages.
He has authored numerous composites related reports for clients worldwide, including companies, government ministries and regional development agencies. His book on "The Automation of Polymer Composites Manufacturing" was published by JEC in 2010 and he regularly presents papers on the composites industry at conferences in Asia, the USA and Europe.
Doctor of Philosophy (Sep 2006 ~ Dec 2010)
School of Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering, Georgia Tech, GA, USA
MS (MAR 1997 ~ FEB 1999)
Fiber and Polymer Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
BS (MAR 1993 ~ FEB 1997)
Fiber and Polymer Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
Research Interests:
Carbon Fiber, CFRP, recycling of CFRP, fast curing thermosetting, Vitrimer matrix composites,
Nanocomposites, Cellulose nano-fiber, Cellulose nano-crystals, Injection molding of plastics, compression molding of plastics, paintings, water bone paint, solvent bone paint, Additive manufacturing,
Research Experience:
Senior Research Engineer (FEB 2011~) : Plastics for automotive exterior parts, CFRP
Exterior, and PT Polymeric Materials Development team, Hyundai Motor Company
Research Manager (Jun 2001 ~ Oct 2006) : Plastics compounding, Plastic characterization
Flame retardant ABS development team, LG Chem.
Research Engineer (FEB 1999 ~ MAY 2001) : fiber spinning, fiber interlacing
PTT (poly-trimethylene terephthalate) fiber spinning, Saehan industry
Renee Bagwell, Ph.D., Senior Process Technology Engineer at Harper International, received a Ph.D., M.S., B.S. Mechanical Engineering, and a B.S. Industrial Engineering all from The University at Buffalo, SUNY. She worked at Cooper Turbocompressor while working through first two B.S. degrees. After graduate school she went to work in Research and Development at Praxair in the High Temperature Systems Group. After five years Renee came to Harper International and immediately went into the field and has been actively contributing to the advancements and new designs based on actual field experience since then. The majority of her 12 years at Harper has revolved around Carbon Fiber Equipment. She has spent an accumulated total of five years in the field supervising installation, start-up, and post start-up of our Carbon Fiber Equipment Lines. She’s used this experience to help improve existing equipment and design new equipment to meet the changing demands of the market. Renee is an adventurer at heart and feels that the bigger the challenge, the better the experience and resulting stories.
Graduation in Mechanical Engineering from the Karlsruhe University, Master of Automotive System Engineering and Master in Management, Business and Economics at RWTH University in Aachen, Germany.
Experience in production technologies at Daimler plant. Research and development at RWTH – Automotive Institute, Body Work department. Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, Institute for Mechanical Engineering. Daimler Stuttgart -Noive Vibration Harshness for the motor-gear assembly. R&D Manager in Start-up for laser technologies, Product manager for sheet metal processing machineries at Amada(Japan) Germany, After Sales Manager in machinery for the pharmaceutical industry in Munich area.
Since 2019 – Expert Sales Manager for Composite technologies at KraussMaffei Technologies GmbH in Munich.
Materials change our lives. Since joining Toray in 2007, Haruki Okuda's consistent goal has been to bring surprise and delight to the customers through the development of next-generation carbon fibers. Believing that a detailed understanding of the mechanisms is essential to surpass the limitations of conventional carbon fibers, he engaged in basic research on micromechanics of carbon fibers at the University of Manchester, UK, for two years from 2013, and received his PhD from Tohoku University in 2018. Throughout this process, he has gained a deeper understanding of how to improve further the performance of our "Torayca®", polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fibers. He is currently a research associate at the Composite Materials Research Laboratories (CMRL), leading the R&D team for developing novel carbon fibers which maximize customer value.
Dr.-Ing. Timo Huber is Vice President at HRC Group heading the Advanced Composite Technology Center ACTC with more than 15 years of experience in polymer engineering, composite materials, and lightweight technologies. Timo studied mechanical engineering specialized in motor vehicle technology and polymer science at the University of Stuttgart. From 2006 until 2018 he has been working at Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology ICT in several different roles such as Team Manager for Thermoplastic Processing and Deputy Director of the Department Polymer Engineering. In 2014 he received his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT.
Luca started working in the composite materials market in 2011, during his studies at University. After his degree and during the first two years he enhanced his technical and leadership skills following different projects for Consultancy companies around Europe, understanding how to work with people and how to facilitate the development of new products.
From 2013 he is part of GPMC, a consultancy company in the composite materials market. He is now Co-Owner and Director. During the years he helped introducing new technologies in the market, such as Recycled Carbon Fiber, Nanotechnologies and pitch-carbon-based products.
GPMC main activities are business & product development, technical support for company growth and being a locally-based office for non-EU organizations.
_2.jpg?ext=.jpg){kind=logo}
Roberto Cicalò joined Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. in 2015 as external consultant for the R&D department. He follows as Project Manager different projects in the “Development Composites Centre” in particular focused on composite applications related to Lamborghini’s “Corporate Social Responsibility” in collaboration with various Scientific Institutes, Universities and Industrial Partners.
Prior to joining Lamborghini, Roberto worked as responsible of electric-electronic department in other consultant companies where he gained wide experience in the development, validation and put into production of motorcycle vehicles for different wide world companies.
.png?ext=.png){kind=logo}
Meri Lundahl is an advocate and R&D-enthusiast for a more sustainable and circular economy. With a background in biomaterials research, she has spent the past seven years on developing materials for energy conversion and storage, reinforcement of composite materials, biobased absorbents, among others. At present, she is leading the material innovation and sustainability activities at Teraloop, specialising on circular and biobased materials for light-weighting and magnetic functionality.
Kolja Kuse graduated in electrical engineering at Technical University in Aachen/Germany with a focus on power engineering & technical & scientific computing. He worked many years as project manager in high performance computing projects at companies like Cray Research & NEC Supercomputers in highly political projects like the acquisition of a large national supercomputer (HLRE) at the German Climate Computing Center in 2001.
He started working with a couple of friends on the development of new materials based on a the combination of carbon fibers & minerals (MCC/CFS), including first ideas to generate value for climate change mitigation by replacement of energy- & CO2-intensive materials & founded TechnoCarbonTechnologies in 2005.
In 2015 Kolja Kuse was elected to become the Chairman of the European Business Council for Sustainable Energy e.V.
In 2017 Kolja Kuse founded CleanCarbonTechnology GbR together with Co-Founders Uwe Arnold & Thomas Brück to market the idea to combine carbon fibers made from CO2 with mineral material like natural & artificial stone.
Junus Khan is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Carbitex, LLC - the market leader in flexible carbon fiber technology. By challenging the conventional use of carbon fiber, his endeavors have resulted in novel materials that harness carbon fiber’s trademark performance in new forms. Junus’ believes the development and subsequent coupling of active systems to Carbitex’s flexible carbon fiber technology will have a profound impact on the design, functionality, and production efficiency in a wide array of consumer and industrial applications.
Dr Maurice N. Collins is a Senior lecturer at the School of Engineering, Principal Investigator at the Bernal Institute and Funded Investigator as the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) AMBER centre at the University of Limerick, in Ireland. Currently, he is the Lead Principal investigator (PI) and coordinator of the H2020 funded LIBRE consortium (lignin for carbon fiber), the largest consortium in biobased carbon fibre research in Europe as well as being Co-PI on multiple national funded projects. He has published widely in all the leading journals in his field, is the holder of multiple patents, multiple research awards and has won in excess of €13 million worth of competitive research funding. He has been invited speaker in Europe, Asia and the US. He acts as consultant for various multinational organisations and he is editor of the international journal of biological macromolecules published by Elsevier.
2005 – 2011: RWTH Aachen University, Mechanical Engineering - Diploma Degree, Specialization in major study: Plastics Technology
2008 – 2012: RWTH Aachen University, Economics - Master of Business Administration (MBA)
2012 - 2019: Institute of Plastics Processing (IKV) at RWTH Aachen University, Research Assistant, Composites and Polyurethanes – Doctor Degree/PhD in the field of composites processing
Since 2017: Mitsui Chemicals Europe GmbH, Duesseldorf (HQ Europe), Business Development Manager, Responsible for Thermoplastic Composites Business and Development in Europe
Laurie Calligaris, Director of Sales and Marketing, Toray Performance Materials Corporation. Laurie Calligaris is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Toray Performance Materials Corporation. She has unique experience and knowledge in thermoplastic composites manufacturing and project management for various markets including Athletic Footwear, Consumer Electronics, Sports & Recreation, Medical, and Automotive. She is an ambitious and optimistic leader with proven sales management, marketing and motivational skills. Successful in identifying new opportunities and deeply passionate about development of new, technically complex products into a variety of industries. Laurie is the global lead for the growth of Toray CFRT® materials and in guiding projects for customers worldwide.
Roman Hillermeier, STRUCTeam's Transport Sector Lead, brings over 20 years of composites industry experience from several technology and business development focused roles. After earning a Ph.D. in Polymer Composites in the US, Roman held positions at Hexcel, Devold AMT and Hexion in a variety of senior roles focusing on the automotive, aerospace and renewable energy markets. In addition to a strong knowledge of the composites industry, Roman brings in-depth understanding of materials, manufacturing processes and the composite supply chain.
Dr. Christian Vogl is working at Fiberline Composites A/S as Product Manager in 2020. In this position, he is strengthening Fiberline’s technology lead in carbon and glass pultrusion for the wind turbine industry. 2018 he joined Envision Energy in Shanghai, China, where he led several projects about rotor blade technology. He worked for Nordex Energy GmbH from 2014 as Project Manager Rotorblade and was responsible for the development of Nordex’s latest rotor blades. All recent blade developments at Nordex were carbon blades. From 2012 he was Head of Process Engineering and Commissioning for Carbon Fiber and Process technology and Carbon Fiber Expert at Eisenmann Anlagenbau (now: One Joon). He was responsible for all the process engineering for carbon fiber plants, including the oxidation ovens, carbonisation furnaces and the waste gas treatment. From 2011 he was Technical Project Manager Rotor blade Development and in this position responsible for the development of rotor blades for multi-MW-class wind turbines (2.4 to 6.5 MW). One of the main topics was the first serial implementation of carbon fibers into rotor blades for wind turbines at Nordex. From January 2007 to December 2010 he worked for SGL Carbon as project manager in the field of carbon fiber production and development.
Alexey Dynkin is a professional, full-time researcher for the MSU Stretch Broken Carbon Fiber for Primary Aircraft Structures Program. A materials scientist by training, he is the task leader for the Manufacturing effort of the program, whose objective is to develop processes for manufacturing composites with SBCF feedstock and forming them into complex shapes and structures of interest to aerospace applications. He also consults and assists the Forming and Stretch Breaking tasks, and coordinate student research activities. He received his M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering at Boston University (Boston, MA, USA).
