The William J. Kroll Zirconium medal presented to J.A.L. Robertson in 1993. The 8 cm diameter, 1 cm thick, zirconium medal is presented in a 15 cm square, 8.5 cm tall wooden case. William J. Kroll was a renowned Luxenbourgish metallurgist famous for inventing the Kroll Process for extracting metallic titanium from ores. He later went on to do pioneering work with zirconium.
The following was extracted from https://www.astm.org/
William J. Kroll Zirconium Medal Award
The William J. Kroll Zirconium Medal has been established to recognize outstanding achievement in the scientific, technological or commercial aspects of zirconium production and utilization, and to encourage future efforts, studies and research. Once regarded as a rare metallurgical curiosity, this exotic metal has been proven to possess exceptional properties that make it suitable for use in nuclear reactors and to possess exceptional resistance to corrosion in most media. The naming of the medal for Dr. W. J. Kroll is most appropriate in that he and his colleagues in the U.S. Bureau of Mines developed the process that could be carried out on a commercial scale so that the one-time laboratory curiosity could become an article of commerce. The concept of the medal was initiated by Wah Chang, a company that produced unusual metals, including zirconium, by the Kroll Process.
