JEC Composites Startup Booster 2020 prizes have gone to Lignum (South Korea) and JUC Surf (Australia). The names of the winners have been announced by JEC Korea Online 2020. It has also selected four companies/institutes for the JEC Composites Innovation Awards. JEC Group rewards the best cutting-edge projects which use composites to their full potential.

JEC Korea Online's main objective is to promote the composites sector's most significant innovative projects through the JEC Startup Booster and the JEC Composites Innovation Awards. For the second edition this year, JEC Korea Online revealed the best startups in the Asia Pacific region after a session of pitches held on November 24.

Startup Booster is the leading startup competition in the world of composites. It enables companies to find and assess innovations with a potential impact on the industry. The finalists were selected by a prestigious jury. There are two winners of the JEC Composites Startup Booster 2020 prizes - Lignum (South Korea) has won Jury vote while JUC Surf (Australia) has been selected by the Public vote.

The JEC Composites Innovation Awards is a long-established and worldwide programme with a goal of identifying, promoting, and rewarding the most innovative composite solutions in the world. Over the past 15 years, the JEC Innovation Programme has involved 1,800 companies worldwide; 177 companies and 433 partners have been rewarded for their composite innovations' excellence. The JEC Innovation Awards reward composites champions based on partner involvement in the value chain, technicality, or commercial applications of innovations.

The JEC Composites Innovation Awards winners have been rewarded for their innovative solutions in 4 categories.

In the category of Automotive and Road Transportation, Hankuk Carbon (Republic of Korea) has won the award. Hankuk Carbon has developed an epoxy glass prepreg, with fast curing resin dedicated to mass production. Therefore, it is possible to apply prepreg compression molding (PCM) technology that uses the press method. This material is suitable for all the components using sheet molding methods. Particularly, the material is suitable for producing EV battery case that requires flame retardancy with the UL-94 V0 Grade. Specifically, it can be applied to battery cover as well as to the lower part tray of battery where high mechanical properties are required. In addition, it features similar mechanical properties as carbon fabric and low-cost material compared to carbon fabric.

In the category Aerospace, the award has gone to the Institute of Polymer Technology (LKT) (Germany) for innovation of the integrative production of a turbine strut based on a combination of prepreg compression molding and thermoset injection molding in one mold. The Institute of Polymer Technology together with its partners has developed an innovative process (called Duro-IMF) for the production of rework-free, hybrid components made of thermoset fibre composites, which have the highest lightweight construction potential. These components enable a considerable weight reduction, eg by substituting metallic components, and thus reduce fuel consumption and emissions in flight operations.

In the category Equipment and Machinery, the winner is Ilsung Machinery (Republic of Korea). It has developed High Performance Carbon Fiber SMC Machine which enables higher mechanical properties, cost reduction, VOC-free SMC and ease of maintenance. Compared to conventional SMC machine, which is generally for glass fibre, SMC machine is optimised for carbon fibre.

The JEC Composites Magazine Special Prize has been given to Toray Carbon Magic (Japan) for developing a Concept Car which is made up of 47 per cent resin.