9th International Specialist Conference in Düsseldorf

Ing. chem. Ernst K. H. Wulkan was born on 6. 02. 1919 in Budweis and studied technical chemistry at the Polytechnic in The Hague after finishing secondary school. He completed his education in 1942 as an engineer-chemist. He then worked as a development chemist in various companies in the Dutch paint and coatings industry before moving to Pretoria in 1952 as deputy head of the coatings laboratory at the South African Bureau of Standards. In 1955 he joined the Building Materials Department of the Rotterdam Building Centre, which he was appointed to head in 1960. The main focus of his work was on the use of plastics in construction. In 1974, he was specifically commissioned by the government to carry out technical quality control of core insulation in hollow masonry, in which, as is well known, foam plastics play an important role. Due to his achievements, he was appointed Knight of the House Order of Orange and Nassau in 1977 on the recommendation of the Ministry of Construction. Wulkan is a member of several study and quality protection committees in the field of plastics, a member of the Institute for Building with Plastics in Darmstadt and a founding member of the “Intercontinental Club for Plastics use in Building Construction”. Since 1961, he has been editor for construction issues of the Dutch Plastics Journal and is well known as the author of numerous publications in trade journals.

The achievement of the award-winner is that, as head of the building materials department of the Building Centre in Rotterdam, he introduced technical quality control for cavity wall insulation with foam plastics in the Netherlands.

His work has contributed greatly to the qualification and extensive use of foam plastics.