3M, the innovation company that never stops inventing, announced that two of its recent technologies have been honored by the prestigious Edison Awards, a global competition for honoring exceptional creativity and ingenuity. At the black-tie award gala last night in San Francisco, the company’s 3M Petrifilm Salmonella Express System received a silver Edison Award in the Science/Medical area’s “Detection” category while the Two-Phase Immersion Cooling Technology using 3M Novec Engineered Fluid earned a bronze Edison Award within the Applied Technology section’s “Industrial Productivity” category.

Nominees were judged by a panel of more than 3,000 leading business executives including previous winners, academics and leaders in the fields of product development, design, engineering, science and medicine. The evaluation criteria used for this comprehensive, peer-reviewed process emphasized themes of concept, value, delivery and impact.

Silver Award-Winning 3M Petrifilm Salmonella Express System
The 3M Petrifilm Salmonella Express System is an all-in-one test method for the rapid detection and biochemical confirmation of Salmonella in enriched food and food process environmental samples. Developed out of a global customer demand for a less time-consuming and affordable Salmonella detection method, the 3M Petrifilm Salmonella Express System offers food processors both environmental and financial benefits by reducing costs of supplies, and eliminating the need for agar plates and room to store them. Food processors around the world have adopted the technology thanks to its ability to maximize lab productivity and deliver accurate results in as little as 44 hours.

“We were very excited to launch the 3M Petrifilm Salmonella Express System last year because we knew it would be a breakthrough for food processors around the world and their ability to rapidly detect Salmonella, bacteria that are responsible for one of the most common forms of food poisoning,” said Tina Bauman, global marketing supervisor with 3M Food Safety. “To be recognized with a prestigious Edison award is a meaningful validation that this new technology offers unprecedented benefits for our customers.”

Bronze Award-Winning Two-Phase Immersion Cooling with 3M Novec Engineered Fluid
As the growth of data traffic in the cloud spikes, data centers must deliver more performance and storage with less energy consumption. To help meet this goal, 3M has pioneered a revolutionary two-phase immersion cooling technology that can reduce energy costs by 95 percent. In the new solution, equipment is placed directly into 3M Novec Engineered Fluid, an efficient dielectric that keeps the hardware cooled with minimum additional energy, maximum performance and better reliability. The technique has been shown to require 10 times less space than conventional air cooling, making it cost effective for large-scale data center hubs. Heat can also be harvested from the system and reused for heating and other purposes. The technology is currently being utilized in a proof-of-concept supercomputer developed in collaboration with Intel and SGI.

“We are truly honored by this recognition,” said Joe Koch, business director for 3M Electronics Markets Materials Division. “The Edison Awards winners are a prestigious group of leaders in product and service innovation. At 3M we are always innovating and to be recognized for our two-phase immersion cooling technology – which we believe will revolutionize data center design – is exciting.”

The Edison Awards, conducted by the non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization Edison Universe, are sponsored by Ipsos and dedicated to fostering future innovators including projects bridging students to industry. The awards are named after Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) whose inventions, new product development methods and innovative achievements literally changed the world, garnered him 1,093 U.S. patents, and made him a household name. For more information about the Edison Awards and its lists of winners, visit www.edisonawards.com.

3M captures the spark of new ideas and transforms them into thousands of ingenious products. Our culture of creative collaboration inspires a never-ending stream of powerful technologies that make life better. 3M is the innovation company that never stops inventing. With $31 billion in sales, 3M employs 89,000 people worldwide and has operations in more than 70 countries. For more information, visit www.3M.com or follow @3MNews on Twitter.