Zoriana Demchuk, a recent graduate from the NDSU coatings and polymeric materials program, has received the 2021 Industrial Oil Products Division Student Excellence Award from the American Oil Chemists' Society. She will present at the 2021 AOCS Annual Meeting and Expo May 3-14.

Demchuk's paper, titled "The Sustainable Synthesis of Monomers and Latex Polymers Derived from Renewable Plant Oils," details how renewable resources can be used to create new latex compounds.

Conducted in collaboration with researchers at NDSU and Ukraine's Lviv Polytechnic National University, the work discusses the viability of synthesizing polymeric materials from vegetable oils which Demchuk says are better than traditional petroleum-based options given their lower costs and more positive environmental impact. Biobased latexes offer controlled mechanical properties and better moisture resistance which could make them ideal candidates for various coatings applications.

Andriy Voronov, NDSU professor of coatings and polymeric materials, was Demchuk's adviser at NDSU and research collaborator.

“I congratulate Zoriana on this well-deserved award,” Voronov said. “Several times during her doctoral study, she faced entirely new research tasks and she always succeeded given her strong scientific curiosity, persistency and patience.”

Demchuk earned her doctorate in polymer science in 2020 and now works as a postdoctoral research associate in the Chemical Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Lab.

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