35th Annual
Waterborne Symposium
This year’s event focused on “Advances in Sustainable Coatings Technology.”
When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in
2006, many people questioned if the city would ever be able to
recover.For the University of
Southern Mississippi’s School of
Polymers and High Performance
Materials, which has held its
Waterborne Symposium in New
Orleans every year since its inception
in 1972, the future was uncertain.
“The first Waterborne Symposium
after Katrina, in February 2006, was
very poorly attended,” said Robson
Storey, USM professor and symposium
chair. “This was obviously due to
uncertainty on the part of our attendees regarding the readiness of our
hotel and New Orleans to provide the
services necessary for our Symposium.
As it turned out, the hotel and city
were ready, and the Symposium ran
smoothly.”
Since then confidence in the city
seems to be returning; attendance
improved in 2007, and this year it was
higher still. “We are confident that the
Symposium will be fully recovered by
2009,” said Storey.
This year’s Waterborne Symposium,
“Advances in Sustainable Coatings
Technology,” was held January 30-
February 1 at the Marriott at the
Convention Center. This year’s
Symposium showed a marked
improvement over the last two years:
attendance was up to 207 compared to
last year’s 158 attendees and there
were 39 papers presented this year
compared to 28 last year.
The Symposium’s longevity can be
attributed to its ability to consistently
BY KERRY PIANOFORTE
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
provide cutting edge science from
some of the world’s leading experts in
the fields of waterborne technology.
“The Waterborne Symposium has
always been unique in providing outstanding technical content, as opposed
to commercial content, delivered by
industrial scientists to a largely industrial audience,” said Storey. “This was a
highly successful format, and the
Symposium remains the leading technical symposium of this type in coatings.”
“The Waterborne Symposium
achieved initial and lasting success by
providing a technical forum for the
environmental or ‘green’ revolution
that was imposed on the coatings
industry via regulatory pressure for
reduction of air pollution,” Storey continued. “The industry responded to
this challenge, and the revolution was
successful. We are now in a new revolution to replace non-renewable petro-leum-based raw materials with renewable, bio-based raw materials. The
Waterborne Symposium has remained
vital and relevant by responding vigorously to this new challenge with an
emphasis on sustainable coating technologies.”
This year’s Symposium featured a
collection of papers related to the area
of sustainable coatings technologies,
including bio-based and renewable
coatings.
The Symposium commenced with
“BioPreferred federal bio-based products preferred procurement program,”
presented by Steve Devlin of Iowa
State University Extension. Devlin
outlined the BioPreferred Program,
which requires government agencies
The Student Poster Sessions gave attendees the opportunity to speak directly
with the authors.
to give preference to biobased products when making their purchases
and why it is beneficial to participate
in this program. “The federal government purchases a huge amount of
goods and services, totaling $412 billion in 2006,” said Devlin.
“Manufacturers of biobased products
have a unique opportunity to connect
with the nation’s largest marketplace
and to generate increased revenue to
build their businesses while sustaining the environment and helping the
farm economy.”
Devlin went on to describe the current status of the program. Once the
BioPreferred program is fully in place,
manufacturers with approved bio-based products are expected to see the
benefits quickly. “A 2007 national public opinion survey conducted by
NuStats for the United Soybean Board
reveals public interest in bio-based
products is strong,” said Devlin.
“Overall, 63% of those surveyed were
interested in biobased products or
