The 45th Annual Waterborne Symposium

The School of Polymers and High Performance Materials at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) held its 45th Annual International Waterborne, High-Solids and Powder Coatings Symposium February 4-9 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Waterborne Symposium is a technical forum for environmentally friendly coatings technologies. Proceeds from the symposium are used by USM for various elements of academic program development including junior faculty development, graduate student stipends, equipment acquisition and maintenance, and especially scholarships for undergraduate students majoring in Polymer Science. Most of these students enter the coatings or related polymer industries upon graduation. These scholarships are key to USM’s efforts to recruit the highest-achieving students into their Polymer program.

This year’s event had 328 registered attendees and featured 41 talks organized into several sessions related to various aspects of surface coatings: waterborne, additives, corrosion, general and radiation cured.

Plenary Speaker, Panel Discussion, Keynote Address and Sidney Lauren Memorial Lecture

The first session commenced with plenary speaker, Phillip Castanzo of California Polytechnic State and his presentation, “Incorporating Diels-Alder Chemistry to Prepare Thermally-responsive Materials.” 

Diels-Alder (DA) chemistry is becoming increasing popular due to its simplicity and efficiency, Castanzo noted.  It also imparts a thermos-responsive aspect which can result in the preparation of responsive materials.

“The versatility of the DA chemistry allows it to be incorporated with a plethora of synthetic strategies for a range of potential applications,” Castanzo explained.

He went on to describe the development of several different strategies of incorporation of DA chemistry within polymeric materials, including functional surfaces and prepolymers, initiators, inimers and crosslinkers and post-polymerization modification.

“Potential applications range from dynamic surface treatments to rehealable coatings to rheological modifiers to processable matrix resins,” he added.

Following the plenary lecture, Dale Pritchett, publisher of Coatings World, moderated a panel discussion. This year’s panel was titled “Radcure, The Technology, The Benefits, The Future.” 

“This years’ panel was exceptionally good,” said Pritchett. “I was fortunate to get three noted players in the RadCure market that could discuss the technology, the applications for coatings and inks and the market.”

This year’s panel focused on the use of radiation cured coatings and featured experts across the supply chain. The panel was comprised of Howard Ragin, partner at UV Specialties; Juanita Parris, global directory of research and development at Sun Chemical and Gary Coehn, executive director at RadTech.

According to Ragin, radcure is facing three key challenges: regulatory activities, developing new chemistry and new opportunities instead of using legacy chemistry and expanded utilization at the OEM level with in major industrial applications.

“Future needs for radcure technology include finding new outlets for the technology,” said Ragin. “Also hiring new talent to develop technology without pre-existing prejudices, making advancements in both hardware and ‘software,’ new chemicals to enhance added performance capabilities and global standardization.”

Parris of Sun Chemical gave an overview of the company’s involvement in radcure technology.

“In 1969 Sun Chemical patented it first UV inks,” she said. “Sun Chemical has continued global expansion and investments in new technology. Energy cure has found niches in all areas of packaging materials. Energy cure will continue to grow, reaching more than 700 MT by 2024 due to growing awareness of environmental and performance benefits, reducing energy consumption, lower waste and lower VOC.”

Cohen of RadTech concluded the panel with an overview of his organization and the future of radiation cure technology in the paint and coatings industry.

RadTech has recently formed “RadLaunch,” a unique, technology accelerator that will support early-stage start-ups and small businesses as they drive advancements in clean, sustainable, efficient and energy-saving, next-generation technologies. The mission of RadLaunch is to connect technology start-ups to UV+EB industry leaders.

According to Cohen, “the fast emergence of innovative materials, additive manufacturing/ 3D printing and the use of new tools such as UV LEDs and inkjet, are accelerating the use of UV+EB as replacements for harsh industrial processes and chemicals, and as a way to eliminate waste.

Several start-ups are already seeing the benefits of using UV+EB technology, and RadTech is working to support their efforts.

“There’s a lot of opportunity for new molecules to be developed,” Cohen noted. “I think radcure has a bright future.”

The keynote address, which was delivered by Dean Webster of North Dakota State University was entitled, “Sustainable Thermosets from High Functionality Bio-based Resins.”

“A challenge faced in transitioning from polymer materials derived from petrochemical sources to bio-based sources is in designing materials having the performance properties required for today’s demanding applications,” Webster said. “Thermosetting resins are used in numerous high performance coating systems.”

Through his research, he has developed a process for synthesizing highly functionalized lignin that can be cured into hard and durable coatings.

The seventh annual Sidney Lauren Memorial Lecture was given by Donald Campbell of BASF, who presented “Calculation of Crosslink Density of Thermoset Polymers – A Simpler Method.”

According to Campbell, the practice of calculating the crosslink density of a polymer network has been described by numerous authors and in most cases, the format for the calculation is based on a derivation.

“This can make the calculations quite difficult, and in some cases, terms are reused referring to both the prepolymer constants and those of the final network,” said Campbell. “We have reformatted these calculations into a more intuitive process based on prepolymer constants that are familiar to coating chemists.”

Technology Showcase

In addition to the main technical program, the Waterborne Symposium also included a three-day Technology Showcase. Now in its 21st year, the showcase had a number of exhibitors who focused on emerging technologies, new materials, innovative services and equipment.

Student Poster Sessions/Awards

This year the Waterborne Symposium presented the Siltech Best Paper Innovation Award, the S.K. Mendon Best Student Paper Award and the Eastman Student Poster Awards.
Students presented their research during the Poster Session. This year’s session included 19 student posters.

The Siltech Best Paper Innovation Award was given to Weih Lee of Sherwin-Williams for the presentation, “Cure Kinetics of Epoxy Powder Coatings via Differential Scanning Calorimetry: Implications on Processing and Formulation.”

Corey Parada won the S.K. Mendon Best Student Paper Award for his presentation, “Functionalization of Polyusibutylene and Polyisobutylene Oligomers via the Ritter Reaction.” The Student Poster Winners were as follows: 1st Place Graduate was Ramesh Ramakrishnan for “Effect of Relative Humidity on Free Volume and Mass Transport in Epoxy Amine Networks,” second place was awarded to William Walker for “Cyclic Versus Acrylic Acetal-based Monomers: Using Monomer Design and Thiol-yne Photopolymerization to Tailor Network Architecture and Degradation Profices”  and third place was presented to Jacob Scheckman for “Utilization of Thiol-ene Chemistry for the Simple Fabrication of Zeolite-based Mixed-Matrix Membranes.”

First place undergrad was presented to Delaney Clouse for “Investigating the Impact of Polymer Interfaces on Small Molecular Diffusivity through Multi-Layer Coatings and Subsequent Corrosion Protection” and second place was presented to Alexandra Ivey for “Effect of Varying Crosslinker for PMAA Hydrogel Particles on Swelling Properties and Water Management in Protective Coating Systems.”

The 2019 Waterborne Symposium will be held February 24-March 1 at the Crown Plaza Hotel on Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. For further information go to www.waterbornesymposium.com  

2019 CALL FOR PAPERS

The School of Polymers and High Performance Materials at The University of Southern Mississippi has issued a call for papers for presentation at the 46th Annual International Waterborne Symposium, February 24-March 1, 2019 in New Orleans. Papers should relate to new and emerging technologies related to materials, processes, production, characterization, application and markets in the field of surface coatings. All papers should be original and represent recent advances in coatings science and related disciplines. Title, abstract and author’s names (speaker’s name underlined) should be submitted by mail, fax or e-mail no later than Aug. 15 to School of Polymers and High Performance Materials, The University of Southern Mississippi, Box 10063, Hattiesburg, MS 39406-0063; 601-266-4475; Fax: 601- 266-6265; E-mail: waterborne@usm.edu; Web: www.psrc.usm.edu/waterborne.