The BCI Innovation Award in honor of Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz recognizes innovations within the lead battery industry that align with the guidelines of sustainability, safety, cost, performance, uniqueness and value.
Innovation Excellence Recognized
Every year, hundreds of innovations occur within the lead battery industry – from packaging and technology to equipment, chemistry and beyond. The goal of the BCI Innovation Award is to collect all of these innovations and showcase them to both the industry and the public.
The award was established to honor industry thought leader, Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz, former CEO of East Penn Manufacturing Co.
Submission Guidelines
The following guidelines should be considered when submitting an innovation. Entries do not need to align with all guidelines. Providing multiple supporting documents that align with these guidelines will give judges additional insight and clarity on your submission.
- Sustainability – How does your submission show environmental stewardship? Provide tangible aspirations, goals and objectives in helping to create a greener tomorrow.
- Safety – Does your submission show product and/or process stability? Can it be safely commercialized? Demonstrate a clear commitment to the safety of the general public and industry.
- Cost – Can the submission be easily commercialized and/or provide cost-optimized advantages? Is it an affordable alternative to existing technologies and processes?
- Performance – Show how your innovation meets its intended key objectives, goals and benefits.
- Uniqueness – How does it differ from existing products? Information should clearly define what makes this product, process and/or discovery unique.
- Value – How does the submission directly benefit the lead battery industry? Can the product be utilized outside of the company that created it?
More Details
- The Award is open to companies and individuals from around the globe, including BCI members and non-members.
- Innovations must have been implemented within the past 12 months.
- Companies can submit more than one entry, but each innovation may only be submitted once.
- Submissions must be submitted via the portal and include:
- Short summary of product/service (400 words)
- Brief overview of organization involved and the ways it supports this innovation (if applicable) (500 words)
- Technical drawings/diagrams as needed to explain innovation
- Resumes’ of product/service creators
- Contact info
- Companies are asked to provide a maximum 90 second video to be displayed at the BCI Convention if the submission is accepted for display.
Congratulations to the 2023 Innovation Award Winner!
The award recognizes Gopher Resource’s patent-pending SCRUM process, or Slag Cleaning and Recovery of Useful Metals process. The SCRUM process uses furnace fuming technology to separate the tin and lead into a concentrated fume form with very high selectivity and efficiency, leaving behind a “cleaned” bulk iron sodium-silicate “SCRUM Slag.”
Gopher Resource’s innovative process separates 99% of useful metals from lead blast furnace slags, producing LME-grade tin and lead bullion that can be refined and used in new batteries. The remaining SCRUM Slag is an environmentally-friendly byproduct that can be repurposed and shows promising potential for commercialization. The ability to recover these metals from lead battery recycling slag in a safe, economically feasible way is an industry first.
Gopher Resource is an industry leading environmental solutions provider focused on transforming waste lead batteries into reusable materials. The company is committed to protecting the environment and contributing to a circular economy by creating innovative solutions that further the battery recycling industry’s goals of waste minimization, water reuse and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation.
Daramic received an honorable mention for their submission.
Thank you to all companies that submitted innovations.
The high recycling rate of U.S. lead batteries means a large percent of U.S. lead battery manufacturing supply chain inputs (73% of its lead) are sourced from domestic recyclers.