Finalists for the 2021 R&D 100 Awards have been announced by R&D World magazine. This renowned worldwide competition, now in its 59th year, received entries from 17 different countries/regions. This year, the judging panel included nearly 50 well-respected industry professionals across the globe.

“We weren’t sure what to expect with the impact that COVID-19 has had on research labs across the world,” said Paul J. Heney, Vice President, Editorial Director for R&D World. “But this year exceeded all of our expectations, with more submissions coming in than in the previous few years. What’s more, the quality of the entries was extremely high.”

The Finalists are listed below by category, and then alphabetically by submission name, and include primary submitting organizations and then co-developing organizations. (Please note: There were no Finalists within the “Other” category this year, so only the remaining five categories are listed below.)

Depending on a pending decision as to whether to hold an in-person or virtual awards ceremony, the 2021 R&D 100 Winners, as well as the Special Recognition category medalists, will be announced in late September or in mid-November. Details on that decision will be released soon.

Finalist logos are available here (PDF) and here (.png file). And to order extra engraved plaques, click here for the PDF form.

A sincere congratulations from our whole staff to all of the Finalists!

Analytical/Test category

3D Printing Biomimetic Materials and Structures for Tissue Integration (BioMS-Ti)
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)
Ingrowth Biotech Co., Ltd.

Aquadex SmartFlow®
Nuwellis Inc.

Ballistic Gas Chromatograph (BGC)
MRIGlobal
VICI Valco Instruments

Bigfoot Spectral Cell Sorter
Thermo Fisher Scientific
Propel Labs

Fast PFAS Sensor
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Forager
Brightseed

Gibco™ CTS™ Rotea Counterflow Centrifugation System
Thermo Fisher Scientific
Scinogy

GUIDE (Guided Ultrasound Intervention Device)
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Massachusetts General Hospital

Model 261 Deep Ultraviolet Diode Laser Module
UVC Photonics

MSA-650 IRIS Micro System Analyzer
Polytec GmbH
Robert Bosch GmbH — Central Research and Advance Engineering Division – Microsystems Technology, Stuttgart University — Institute of Applied Optics, Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems, IMMS Institut für Mikroelektronik- und Mechatronik-Systeme gemeinnützige GmbH

NexION® 5000 Multi-Quadrupole ICP Mass Spectrometer
PerkinElmer, Inc.

Nortis ParVivo Platform
Nortis, Inc.

OH0TA OVMed® Medical Image Sensor
OmniVision Technologies Inc.

Peak Nano Optics
Peak Nano Optics

PhotoCube™
ThalesNano Inc.
ComInnex Inc.

Potent and Effective Synthetic SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Nanobodies
Sandia National Laboratories

RAPTR N95
Sandia National Laboratories

SIRIUS® XHS
Dewesoft d.o.o.

The Solvere™ CSD
Activated Research Company, LLC

TruTag’s Edible Barcodes
TruTag Technologies, Inc.

IT/Electrical category

Cloud-based Smart Point Cloud Processing (CSPCP)
National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) of National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs)
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Tunghai University

ePix X-ray detectors
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Field-Programmable Imaging Array
MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Free-space quantum network link architecture
MIT Lincoln Laboratory

GridDamper
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Electric Power Research Institute

Infinitum Electric Air-Core Motor
Infinitum Electric

kNOw Touch
Hong Kong Productivity Council

Lab-on-a-Fish
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Lightweight Optical Telecommunication from Under Sea (LOTUS)
MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Low Voltage Air Circuit Breakers World Super AE V Series C-class
Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

Monolithic Fiber Array Launcher
MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Multiplicity Counter for Thermal and Fast Neutrons (MC-TF)
Radiation Monitoring Devices (RMD) Inc.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Nalu micro-implantable pulse generator (mIPG)
Nalu Medical, Inc.

Optical Transconductance Varistor
Opcondys, Inc.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Quantum Scientific Computing Open User Testbed (QSCOUT)
Sandia National Laboratories

Small Spacecraft Electric Propulsion (SSEP) System
NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC)

Small World AI
LocationMind Inc.
The University of Tokyo

SmartTensors AI Platform
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Spectrally Efficient Digital Logic
MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Wireless Valve Position Indicator Sensor System
Idaho National Laboratory

Mechanical/Materials category

A high-performance chromium-antimony absorber material for next-generation lithography photomasks
The Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)

AeroMINE
Sandia National Laboratories
Westergaard Solutions, Inc., Texas Tech University

AGILITYTM 1500 Performance LDPE
Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics, a business unit of Dow

AgriTraxx® AirCore™ Gauge Tires
Superior Tire & Rubber Corp.

AMSil™ and AMSil Silbione™
Elkem Silicones

aquatimo®
Taiwan Textile Research Institute

Autonomous Self-Healing Sealant
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

BETAMATE™ 2090 crash resistant structural adhesive for battery housings enabling EV mass production and offering safe battery modules
DuPont

BIG NET
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
ReactWell, LLC, Holocene Climate Corp.

Borchi® OXY-Coat 1510
Milliken & Company

Carbon CACHE (Ceramic Anode Cell with High Efficiency)
Idaho National Laboratory

Catalyzed Diesel Exhaust Fluid (CAT-DEF™)
Southwest Research Institute

Celluwarm
Nano and Advanced Materials Institute
Shengquan Hong Kong Company Ltd.

Coffee Bean Grinding Blade with Hard Amorphous Metal Coating
Nano and Advanced Materials Institute
Severin Asia Ltd.

Create to Zero _ Future Eco Textiles with Bio-Dyes and Bio-Auxiliaries (BioDA)
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)
Eclat Textile Co., Ltd.; Jintex Corp. Ltd.

Delrin® RA511CPE
E.I. DuPont de Nemours (Mobility & Materials)

DOWSIL™ 8016 Waterborne Resin
Dow

DOWSIL™ TC-4060 Thermal Gel
Dow Performance Silicones

E-NANO FTHR-001 Resin
Nano and Advanced Materials Institute
Chung Yin New Materials (H.K.) Company Ltd.

Earth’s-field Resonance Detection and Evaluation (ERDE) Devices
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Easy-Dismantled PV Modules with Thermoplastic Elastomer and Thermoset EVA Material, EDPV-2TE
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)

ELCRES™ HTV150 Dielectric Film
SABIC
Shin-Etsu Polymer Co.

GRSR™
Nano and Advanced Materials Institute
Hongrita Plastics Ltd.

Guardiant
Corning Incorporated

High-Temperature Printable (HTP) Aluminum Alloys
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

HSG Thermal Management Pad
Nano and Advanced Materials Institute
HFC Industry Ltd.

Hybrid Power Fuel Cell System with High Payload and Duration for UAV (HPFC-HPD)
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)

INFINAIR™ Polyolefin Elastomers
Dow Specialty Plastics
GiGwi HK Trading Co., Ltd.

Integrated Chutes and Sensors: Making Biorefineries Commercially Viable
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Jenike & Johanson

IS-P4 Separator-free Lithium-ion Battery
Nano and Advanced Materials Institute
Amperex Technology Limited

Layered-Rocksalt Intergrowth Electrode Materials for Next-Generation Li-ion Batteries
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Liquid Nails® Fuze*It® Max™
PPG

Microhydraulic Motors
MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Multi-functional Sorbent Technology (MUST)
Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory
Somerset International Inc., The Dow Chemical Company

Portable EnGineered Analytic Sensor with aUtomated Sampling (PEGASUS)
Los Alamos National Laboratory

PPG BFP-SE Battery Fire Protection
PPG

PPG ENVIROCRON™ Extreme Protection Thermally Conductive Dielectric Powder Coatings
PPG

PPG HI-TEMP™ 1027 HD
PPG

RE-Metal
Idaho National Laboratory

RHOBARR™ 214 Emulsion
The Dow Chemical Co.

SABIC’s High-Purity SD1100P Specialty Dianhydride
SABIC

Smart Motoring-Gear Module
Electric Motor Technology Research Center, National Cheng Kung University
Metal Industries Research & Development Centre

Smart-bomb for Neutralizing Underground TCE Pollution (S-NUT)
Industry Technology Research Institution(ITRI)

Solar Forward Osmosis (FO) Desalination System
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Porifera Inc. and California Resource Corp.

Solvite Garment Rejuvenator
Milliken & Company
Procter & Gamble

The Continuous Type Heat Treatment System Equipment for Micro Parts (CTHT)
Metal Industries Research & Development Centre (MIRDC)

Timken Split Tapered Roller Bearing for Mainshaft
The Timken Co.

Tough SmCo
Ames Laboratory
Electron Energy Corp.

Ubiquitous Water Wand (UWAW)
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)
Chyi Ding Technologies Co., Ltd.

UCC: Ultraconductive Copper-CNT Composite
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Ultrawhite Radiative Cooling Paint
Purdue University

Process/Prototyping category

A Novel Circulating Bed Biofilm Reactor (CBBR) for Carbon Capture from Sewage
Hong Kong Productivity Council

Bio-nano cellulose composite technology through aqueous-phase functionalization
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
FiberLean Technologies Ltd.

Electric Autonomous Box Truck
Gatik

Electrically-Assisted Free Forming (EAFF) Technology – Digital Dieless Direct Manufacturing Technology for Mass Customization of Sheet Metals
Hong Kong Productivity Council
Tung Hing Automation Investment Ltd.

HP 3D High Reusability PP
HP Inc.

HP Jet Fusion 5200 Series: 3D Automatic Unpacking Station
HP Inc.

In-Sight 3D-L4000
Cognex Corp.

RFID Yarn®: Overcomer for 5 Major Durability Test
Taiwan Textile Research Institute

Stamping-Type Plating Machine
Toyota Motor Corp.
Toyota Central R&D Labs. Inc., Mikado Technos Co., Ltd.

UHS rapid sintering
University of Maryland College Park
HighT-Tech LLC

Upcycling of Electronic Waste into Gold Nanoparticles Using Ultrasound
Sandia National Laboratories

Win-3D Washout-Coating
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, The ExOne Co.

Software/Services category

ADS Codex: Adaptive DNA Storage Codec
Los Alamos National Laboratory

AI-Rad Companion Organs RT
Siemens Healthineers AG

AiWT-DMP
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)
HCT Logistics, iAmech Technology Inc.

Bison
Idaho National Laboratory

BLK247 from Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon
Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon

Certara’s COVID-19 Vaccine Model
Certara

CICE Consortium
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Danish Meteorological Institute, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences, National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Naval Postgraduate School, U. S. Naval Research Laboratory Stennis Space Center, University of Reading, University of Washington

Commercial Routing Assistance Tool
Idaho National Laboratory
All Hazards Consortium

dGen™
National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Eco-Mobility with Connected Powertrains
Southwest Research Institute
Toyota Motor North America, University of Michigan

Floodlight™ Non-Targeted Analysis System
Southwest Research Institute

Flux: Next-Generation Workload Management Software Framework
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Global Synthetic Weather Radar
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
U.S. Air Force

IdPrism
MIT Lincoln Laboratory

INER Distribution Network Management System (iDNMS)
Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Atomic Energy Council, Executive Yuan (INER)

Misinformation join-fighting mechanism enabled by AI forensics technology
Institute for Information Industry
Taiwan FactCheck Center

ML-GA
Argonne National Laboratory

Mochi: Customizable Data Navigation Tool
Argonne National Laboratory
Carnegie Mellon University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, The HDF Group

MSC MillMax®
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
MSC Industrial Supply Inc., Manufacturing Laboratories Inc.

MURMUR (Motion Under Rubble Measured Using Radar)
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)
The Rapid Reaction Technology Office (OSD RRTO)

Plug-N-Play Appliance for Resilient Response of Operational Technologies (PARROT)
Idaho National Laboratory

Precision Deicer
Clinch River Computing LLC
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

QED: Quantum Ensured Defense of the Smart Electric Grid
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory and EPB

Resilience Smart Maintenance System for Semiconductor Automation Equipment (RSMS)
Institute for Information Industry

Secure-Firmware Over-the-Air (S-FOTA)
Sandia National Laboratories

Shadow Figment
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Shared Information Platform for Disaster Management
Hitachi, Ltd.
National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience

Slycat
Sandia National Laboratories

Smart Multifunctional Periodontal Pathology Quick Screening System (SMPPQSS)
Metal Industries Research & Development Centre (MIRDC)

SNAPSHOT: Distributed Accelerated All-Pairs Shortest Path
Oak Ridge National Labaoratory
Georgia Institute of Technology

Software-defined Augmented Robot Joint (SARJ)
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)

SZ: A Lossy Compression Framework for Scientific Data
Argonne National Laboratory

talos.DPI: Transparent Application-Layer/OS Deeper Packet Inspector
Sandia National Laboratories

Terra Spotlight: A New Paradigm in Rapid Change Detection Using Satellite Images
Los Alamos National Laboratory

The Neutron and Gamma Ray Source Localization and Mapping Platform 2.0
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

ThermalTracker-3D
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Traffic Flow Impact (TFI) Tool
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Federal Aviation Administration

UVL Robotics: drone solution for warehouse inventory counts
UVL Robotics Inc.

WEC-Sim
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Sandia National Laboratories