The International Commission on Glass (ICG) has presented its Turner Award to Schott researcher Prof. Volker Rupertus.
The organisation said it recognised his years of active support to the ICG’s Technical Committees and his expertise on the surface characteristics of glass.
Rupertus has done pioneering work on developing a quick test for monitoring the propensity of glass delamination occurring in pharmaceutical vials.
His scientific work is a key element of Schott’s recent Schott Vials Delamination Controlled pharmaceutical vial that reduces the risk of delamination and helps to keep the drug stable over its shelf life.
Volker Rupertus was part of a team of Schott scientists who examined the basic mechanisms of delamination behaviour and consequently developed a production process for manufacturing glass vials with appropriate surface conditions.
Rupertus finalised a testing procedure for controlling the delamination propensity of glass vials during production. This so-called Schott Delamination Quicktest allows for a threshold value to be defined for a vial’s tendency to delaminate for the first time ever.
The Quicktest and the threshold values were verified by the company’s analytics department by using a set of data and acceleration studies.
A scientific paper about the Delamination Quicktest was published in the PDA Journal Pharm Sci and Tech 2014, 68 373-380.
The Turner Prize is named after ICG’s first President, Professor W.E.S. Turner, was officially presented to Mr Rupertus at the Commission’s annual meeting held in Bangkok. The prize rewards those who have made a noteworthy contribution to the ICG Technical Committees.
Mr Rupertus studied technical physics at the University of Kaiserslautern and earned his PhD in the field of glass surface science.
In 1995, he started his career at Schott’s central R&D department. As head of the analytical department, he worked with his group for more than a decade for several Schott divisions in the field of process development & characterisation.
