ITRI Garners Two More WSJ Technology Innovation Awards

For the third consecutive year, Taiwan's government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) brought honor to the island by winning awards at the Wall Street Journal's 2011 Technology Innovation Awards. This time, ITRI took two first prizes.

ITRI beat out more than 600 competitors, including HP, Philips, Yahoo, and ARMS, to win first prizes in two categories—Environment, and Materials and Other Base Technologies—for its Spray IT and i2R e-Paper technologies.

ITRI says that the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards, first held in 2001, are among the world's most prestigious of their kind. The winners—unique technologies ready for commercialization—are chosen from around 1,000 entries each year, based on such criteria as breakthrough importance and revolutionary or evolutionary concepts.

This year the judging committee consisted of industrial and academic experts from prominent research institutions, venture capital firms, and major enterprises from different countries. The winners are often high-potential products; India's Tata Motors, for instance, won a prize for its revolutionary Nano mini-car. In addition to technology innovation, the awards stress future applications and business opportunities.

Spray IT
In its announcement of the winners in the Environment category, the Wall Street Journal stated, “Heat-reflecting windows let in light without straining air conditioning. The top prize in this category went to the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, or ITRI, for a spray insulation coating that can be applied to glass windows and other materials at a much lower cost than existing techniques. ITRI's Spray IT uses a tin-oxide material laced with minute amounts of lithium and fluorine that can be sprayed on glass or building tiles. The material is less costly than the silver-based films that are commonly used in reflective materials, ITRI says, and can be applied without specialized equipment. The ability to use regular spraying methods means the product can be used on existing structures.

Glass using this spray-coating thermal insulation technology can lower indoor temperatures by as much as 100 Celsius, saving huge amounts of electricity for air conditioning. According to ITRI, the cost of insulating an entire office building in Taipei using this technology would be recovered in about two years.

This high-transparency, heat-insulating spray has other potential applications as well; applied to the cover plates of solar cells, for instance, it can lower temperatures and improve power generation. Another promising use is as a replacement for indium-tin-oxide (ITO) transparent conductive film, which could reduce production costs by up to 60%.

i2R e-Paper
In its report on winners in the Materials and Other Base Technologies category, the Wall Street Journal commented, “The Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan earned top honors in this category for a reusable and recyclable electronic paper that can take the place of regular office printer paper. ITRI says not only is its i2R e-paper less expensive than the costly rewritable printer products currently available, but also the cost could be comparable to that of conventional black-and-white inkjet or laser printing. The i2R e-paper uses a special type of liquid-crystal technology to display text and other images on a bendable, thin plastic sheet. To print a document, the sheets are run through a simple device, similar to an old-style thermal fax machine that heats the liquid-crystal layer, turning molecules light or dark. ITRI estimates that a single sheet could be reused 260 times before it would need to be replaced. ITRI, a nonprofit research center, says it has licensed the i2R technology to Taiwan's Chang Chun Plastics Co., which plans to begin pilot production of an e-paper product next year.

ITRI goes on to explain that the special energy-conserving display technology used in its e-paper—a flexible cholesteric liquid-crystal panel—requires only heat to store and transmit images, without using expensive ink. The i2R e-paper delivers 300 dpi high-resolution, 16 gray level image that remains crisp until the user decides to re-write on the e-paper.

“We're glad to have the endorsement of the Wall Street Journal in awarding us the top prize in the Environment category,” commented Dr. Tsung-Tsan Su, general director of ITRI's Material and Chemical Research Laboratories. “Spray IT is an energy-conserving material that ITRI takes pride in, and we'll keep working on more diversified applications for it. At present global warming is worsening, and we'll continue to pursue our mission of environmental protection by developing more eco-friendly energy-saving materials.”

Regarding the i2R E-paper, Dr. John Chen, general director of ITRI's Display Technology Center, said, “With support from the technology development program of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, along with the vigorous promotion of inter-departmental and interdisciplinary technology integration by ITRI's President Jyuo-Min Shyu, ITRI won top honors last year with its forward-looking technology for the Flexible Universal Panel for Display (FlexUPD) that promises to change mobile life in the future, and this year the Wall Street Journal has awarded us again for our energy-conserving, environment-protecting i2R e-Paper. Our focus on innovation and research, and the attitude of pursuit of excellence, are important factors in the i2R e-Paper's winning of both the Technology Innovation Award and the US R&D 100 Awards this year. These honors are a testament to ITRI's R&D performance and its convergence with the global trends of the future.”

ITRI notes that competition for the Technology Innovation Awards is fierce, with only 35 technologies, out of 605 entries, being awarded this year. In 2009 ITRI won a top award for its fleXpeaker in the Consumer Electronics category, and in 2010 won the Overall Gold Award for its FlexUPD.