Josh Guilliams, Vice President of Consultancy, leads Smithers’ technical consulting team based in Akron, Ohio. Josh manages client relationships and works with other Smithers experts on complex projects. He also conducts in-depth investigations of a wide variety of rubber materials and final products on behalf of clients.
Before joining the team at Smithers, Guilliams spent several years in leadership at Polymer Valley Chemicals, Inc., as Technical Director and Vice President of Technical Operations. Prior to his time at Polymer Valley Chemicals, he held technical and commercial roles at Hankook Tire, EASTMAN Chemical Corporation, LANXESS Corporation, and Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations.
Experience: CSRC&CCC/Round Star/Black Cat
• 1995 Researcher (for CRSC take over CCC)
• 2004 Specialty Black (Maanshan Plant)
• 2007 CSRC Lin-Yuan Plant Manager →
Maanshan Plant Manager
• 2013 CSRC China General Plant Manager (for three plants)
• 2014 Consultant for Round Star
• 2016~ Consultant for Black Cat
Zhong Jianghua (Echo), Master of Applied Chemistry of Qingdao University of Science and Technology, MBA of Manipal Global Nxt University, is currently the technical service manager of Birla Carbon in China. He has rich experience in the production, quality management and application technology of carbon black products.
Paul Ita runs Notch Consulting, a Massachusetts-based research company dedicated to the market research needs of the global specialty chemicals industry. Mr. Ita focuses on raw materials for the global tire and rubber industries, with a particular focus on carbon black, silica, and rubber chemicals. Through Notch, he publishes the Carbon Black World Data Book and the Carbon Black Quarterly Newsletter.
Black Cat Specialty Carbon Black Unit：President
Specialty Carbon Black Committee of Carbon Black Branch of China Rubber Industry Association：Founder
Anhui University：Master's Tutor · Visiting Professor
Anhui Jianzhu University：Visiting Professor
Anhui Institute of International Business：Visiting Professor
Wang Jiagui, Executive Director, Party Committee Secretary and General Manager of China Carbon Black Institute (hereinafter referred to as CCBI).He is a professor-level senior engineer. He has been committeed to R&D and production manangement of organic fluorine materials, epoxy resin and functional carbon materials for years and achieved fruitful results. In recent years, he focuses on the development of functional carbon materials for rubber, plastics and other fields, and proposes customization of products to serve various middle and high-end customers, which has been highly recognized by the market. At the same time, he attaches great importance to the upgrading of carbon black engineering technology, and strives to build CCBI into a global integrated carbon black service provider.
Professor of engineering
VP at Longxing Chemical Co., Ltd. and Member of the Board
Expert with State Council special allowance
Member of Technical and Economic Committee of China Rubber Industry Association
Member of the expert group of the Carbon Black Branch of China Rubber Industry Association
Personal profile: Ma Baoliang entered the carbon black industry in 1987 and successively worked in Tianjin Dolphin Carbon Black Co., Ltd. and Longxing Chemical Co., Ltd. . He has been specialized in carbon black R&D and quality control for 36 years.
Mr. Tim Bart is principal of Carbon Management International, a consulting firm established in 1999. Mr. Bart co-publishes the monthly CBO Monitor with Mr. Vince Guercio reporting on carbon black feedstock and the carbon black industry. Prior to 2017, Carbon Management was involved in global coal tar and coal tar distillation, consulting and sourcing distillation products for related downstream industries. Mr. Bart serves as president of the International Tar Association, an industry association comprised of coal tar distillation and related companies. Mr. Bart received degrees in Environmental Science, Masters of Business Administration, Masters of Communications and Masters of International Relations from Rutgers University, Fairleigh Dickinson University and Seton Hall University. Mr. Bart thanks the conference organizers for the opportunity to join this year's speaker program.
He got a lot of honour and awards including distinguished professor of the first batch of 652 scholars program of Sichuan University of Science & Engineering, at Zigong city Sichuan Province and local chief expert of polymer materials service. His research interests are in carbon black materials, CB/polymer materials, silicon carbon anode material . He has presided over more than 80 scientific research projects, including the there National Natural Science Foundation projects and the Innovation Fund for Small and medium-sized Enterprises under the Ministry of Science and Technology . Up to now, He has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Applied Surface Science, Carbon, polymer. He has published over 30 granted patents. He is also at the editorial board of of Chinese famous academy periodicals such as New Carbon Materials, Carbon and Carbon Technology. Besides, he holds a lot of posts concurrently including the 7th and 8th Board member of China Corrosion and Protection Association, and the standing director of Sichuan Corrosion Association.
Prof. Guo Baochun, Ph.D., Dean of School of Materials Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, focus on fundamental researches and applications of rubber materials. He serves as the deputy directors for the Rubber Institution and Rubber-Plastic Green Manufacturing Division, Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China. For his significant contributions in network design and performance regulation of rubber materials, he was awarded Sparks-Thomas Award of the American Chemical Society in 2022, the National Distinguished Youth Fund of China in 2018, and the Leading Talent of the National Ten Thousand Talents Plan in 2017, Hou Te-Pang Youths Award by Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China in 2016, and Outstanding Youths in Technological Contribution by China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation in 2016. In addition, He has published more than 160 research papers in international journals that had been cited for more than 10,000 times (Google Scholar). He also holds more that 20 issued patents.
Prof. Jarrn-Horng Lin graduated from National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan, in 1989 and received his Ph. D in 1999 from the Department of Chemistry. He is a Professor at the Department of Materials Science of the National University of Tainan since 2013 and became the Chairperson of Dept. Mater. Sci. of NUTN since 2019. Additionally, he served as a Researcher and Project manager at the Research & Development Center of the Chinese Synthesis Rubber Corporation (CSRC) during 1993-2003. He established the Carbon Society of Taiwan (CST) in 2017; served as the General Secretary of the CST during 2017-2020 and is a standing supervisor of the CST since 2020.
His research activities focus on carbon nanotubes, general and e-conductive carbon black, polymer reinforcement, energy storage materials (mainly EDLC and sodium-ion batteries), and environmental wastes converting into carbon materials and hydrogen fuels. He has published over 50 SCI papers with a WOS h-index of 19, i10 index of 30. He has given over 25 plenary/keynote/invited lectures at various conferences and won eight times Reward College Talents of MOST(2013-2020), Taiwan, and the Best paper award at the international Nano-Micro Conference in 2018, Dec. 17-20, 2018, Jeju Island, Korea. He also holds and as the chair 8 times of the cross-stair symposium on new carbon materials since 2012.
Silke Jagusch has been with ARVOS GmbH l SCHMIDTSCHE SCHACK, Duesseldorf, Germany, since 1996.
She is Product and Sales Manager for the carbon black business and handles Schack equipment for energy recovery such as air preheaters, quench boilers etc.
Silke started her career in the project and sales department, where she was in charge of process design and sales of heat recovery equipment for the iron and steel industry as well as for foundries.
Silke studied process engineering at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. She received her graduate in 1996.
Martin von Wolfersdorff is a consultant specialising in alternative rubber fillers and tire pyrolysis. He is in contact with over 320 tire pyrolysis companies globally and advises tyre manufacturing associations, tire manufacturers, tire collectors, refineries, pyrolysis technology providers & operators on the global tire pyrolysis industry and the marketing of recovered carbon black. Previously, Martin worked in the carbon black industry with Cabot, in the custom colour masterbatch industry with Americhem and in the white pigment industry with Huntsman Pigments. Martin holds a Dipl. Ing. (Univ.) degree in chemical engineering from the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany.
Dr. Jerry (Zhen) Lai is the R&D Director at Birla Carbon based in Atlanta, USA. Jerry is responsible for new product development and technical service for Specialty Blacks applications in Coatings, Plastics, Inks, Sealants and Niche. Prior to Birla Carbon, Jerry held multiple technical leadership positions at Xerox, Momentive, and Hexion, with years of experience in product development in the chemical industry.
Jerry Holds Ph.D. degree of Chemical Engineering from Leigh University, a Master, and a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Tsinghua University. He has over 20 publications, 30+ granted patents, and many conference presentations.
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Jia Weijie received master degree of chemistry from Tsinghua University in 2010. He joined EVE Rubber Institute in 2013 and worked as chemical engineer, manager of department of Rubber Chemicals, and Vice-President. His research area is about fundamental science in reinforcement and vulcanization.
Assistant President of Doublestar Group Co., Ltd. , Secretary of Party Committee of Ecostar Environmental Industry, and Senior Engineer. Current member of the expert committee of the China Tire Recycling Association, expert of the Shandong Equipment Manufacturing Association, the vice chairman of the CIO think tank of the Shandong Information and Industry Technology Integration Promotion Center, expert of the expert bank of the Qingdao Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, awarded with honorary titles of Excellent Chief Data Officer of Shandong Province and Excellent Chief Information Officer of Shandong Province.
In recent years, she has been actively exploring the high-quality development oriented to ecological priority and green development, leading her team to develop the international leading "intelligent green cracking for waste tires and carbon black deep processing equipment", making overall arrangement in constructing several "Industry 4.0" intelligent factories for waste tire recycling, and creating a green closed-cycle industry chain of "resource-product-waste-renewable resources". Her work has been helping the industry to develop in a green and sustainable way.
Ciaran is responsible for delivering Smithers global growth initiatives and supporting Smithers Asian client base.
Ciaran has been working for Smithers for nearly twenty years supporting the packaging, print and paper value chains with key market and technical information in the form of conferences, reports and consulting. Ciaran has worked on winning and delivering a wide range of market consultancy projects to major industry players, recent projects include a global assessment of printing and packaging growth trends and market assessment for a major new product launch for one of the world’s largest packaging converters.
Ciaran has launched and managed many international conferences in this sector including Digital Print for Packaging, SustPack, Specialty Papers and Print Futures.
Juergen Lauer has been with ARVOS GmbH l SCHMIDTSCHE SCHACK Duesseldorf, Germany, since 2002. As Product and Sales Manager for Schack products, he was the face to the customers in the carbon black industry for many years and responsible for the sales of carbon black air preheaters and other equipment. Being today Head of Sales & Tendering Juergen is also part of the product and development team for the carbon black industry and is continuously working on the improvement of product performance and reliability. Juergen started his career as a project and sales engineer for waste heat boilers for industrial processes at Oschatz GmbH in 1992. He changed to Balcke-Dürr Service GmbH in 1997 where he was in charge of planning, sales and order management of reconstruction projects for boilers in power stations and industrial boilers. Juergen studied thermal engineering and power generation at the University of Applied Sciences in Giessen, Germany. He received his graduate in 1991.
Career
Vice President, Sustainability & CSR – Bridgestone Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, Singapore. October 2021 – Present
Director, Sustainability Strategy – SABIC, Singapore.
Senior Manager, Corporate Sustainability – SABIC, Singapore.
Education
Ph.D, Polymer Syntheis, Structure, Property Relationships – Eindhoven University of TechnologyMaster of Technology, Polymer Science & Engineering – Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
More than 20 years’ experience in charge of developing tire formula.
Senior Engineer & Section Chief at ZhongCe Rubber Group Company Limited
Graduated from Tsinghua University, Automotive Engineering department. 27 years in automotive and components industry and over 15 years technical standards, regulations and product certification work experience. Since 2013, served Continental tire company as director of APAC Standards & Regulations.
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Dr. Rafael Vargas is a Lead Scientist at the Birla Carbon Global Technology Laboratory in Marietta, Georgia, USA. He has been with Birla Carbon for over 11 years and is an expert in Analytical Chemistry and the development of new test methods. He is the Subcommittee Chair for the Environment, Health, and Safety segment of the ASTM D24 Committee on Carbon Black. With over 29 years of developing test methods for chemical manufacturers, Rafael has helped create new standards for ASTM D24 including determination of polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) compound content and trace metal content in carbon black. He is a D24 delegate to ISO, and a member of ASTM D36 Committee on Recovered Carbon Black (rCB).
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