5th International Specialist Conference in Düsseldorf
Franz Weißenfels was born on 7 December 1927 in Bad Breisig/ Rhein and studied chemistry at the Technical University of Aachen after graduating from school. After obtaining his doctorate in 1955, he joined Dynamit Nobel AG in Troisdorf as a chemist, where he worked in the plastics laboratory in the field of development and application technology of thermoplastic and thermosetting plastics and resins. His field of work also included fundamental investigations into the production of phenolic resin foam plastics and their possible industrial manufacture. Today, Weißenfels is head of the group Technical Resins in the application technology of the business unit Plastic Raw Materials/Greases.
The achievement of the award is that he has carried out fundamental research on the chemistry of foamable phenolic resins and on the relationships between resin structure, cell structure and properties of phenolic resin foam plastics. The results of this work also enabled continuous industrial production and a wider application of phenolic resin foams for the first time.