Collegio Online

Issue date: 1/24/08 Section: Front Page

Media Credit: Patrick D. Furey/Collegio May Wan, a research associate at the Kansas Polymer Research Center, a program that formulates products like foam from renewable resources (on Joplin St., in Pittsburg), places a vial of liquids in a polymer testing machine to determine the concentrated amount of polymer in each test tube on Wednesday, Jan. 23. The KPRC is located in the Tyler Research Center, a building on Rouse Street that was finished last fall. The KPRC, which has won numerous awards, was earmarked for $1.1 million in federal funding, which is expected to arrive in a few months.

The Kansas Polymer Research Center will receive more than $1.1 million in federal money for new bio-based research - and the grant may be renewable year after year.

The money comes from an earmark in a recently passed bill, but is not expected to arrive for at least two months.

Steve Robb, director of the KPRC, says that they plan to use the money to hire at least three new Ph.D.s, and buy any necessary materials and equipment that the new researchers may need.
Robb says researchers are working to produce new products primarily from soybeans, as well as from other vegetables and oils. Products include adhesives, coatings, solvents, polyglycerins and polycarbonates. The goal is to introduce more products based on renewable resources.

"Every new product we develop reduces our dependency on foreign oil production," Robb said.

Two years ago, Pittsburg State University hired a lobbyist to promote PSU interests in Washington, D.C. The lobbyist is a member of the Kansas delegation and attempted to add a line to the federal budget to get $2 million in funding for the KPRC after the U.S. Department of Agriculture expressed interest in KPRC's research.

That attempt was unsuccessful because of 2006 election-year changes in Congress. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, after a recent campus visit, resubmitted the bill through Congress as an earmark in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which was signed into law by President George Bush.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools