36th Annual
Waterborne Symposium
This annual event in the Big Easy focused on
“Advances in Sustainable Coatings Technology”
BY KERRY PIANOFORTE
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
The University of Southern
Mississippi’s School of Polymers
and High Performance
Materials hosted the 36th Annual
International Waterborne, High-Solids
and Powder Coatings Symposium
February 18-20 at the Marriott
Convention Center in New Orleans,
LA. The 28 papers presented at this
year’s symposium included talks on
bio-based and renewable coatings and
sustainable raw material feedstocks for
the coatings, plastics and related fields.
This year’s event drew 155 attendees.
“We were very pleased with the quality of the technical program and the
final attendance figures for the 2009
Waterborne Symposium,” said Robson
Storey, professor School of Polymers
and High Performance Materials at the
University of Southern Mississippi and
symposium chair. “We received many
favorable comments from attendees,
particularly regarding the Wednesday
morning plenary lecture by Dr. Thames
and the Thursday morning keynote lecture by Dr. Gilbert.”
The Symposium commenced with
the plenary lecture, “Utilizing Nature’s
Technology for Environmentally
Responsible Coatings,” by Shelby F.
Thames, professor, School of Polymers
and High Performance Materials at the
University of Southern Mississippi. His
paper focused on the incorporation of
vegetable oils into coatings formulations as a means to reduce VOCs.
“The coatings industry has consistently and proactively reduced solvent
use and VOC emissions when and
where possible through technologies
such as waterborne, high-solids, powder and UV cure coating systems,”
said Thames.
BEST PAPER AWARDS CEREMONY
Robson Storey, USM professor and Symposium chair, presented the award for
Outstanding Poster - Undergraduate to Lacey Harris for her poster, “Production of
the ABH1 Hydrophobin Protein via Recombinant Methods” and Outstanding Poster -
Graduate to Adam Smith for “Reversible Gold - ‘Locking’ of Nanostructure derived
from Multi-Responsive Block Copolymers Synthesized by RAFT Polymerization.”
According to Thames, vegetable oils
have been extensively used with much
success for many coatings applications. Vegetable oil-based polymers
are used in specific coatings where
their performance versatility outweighs their disadvantages. Some of
the advantages Thames mentioned
were ambient cure, in-can storage stability and their ability to penetrate
porous substrates.
“It was apparent to us that latex
synthesis possessing both traditional
hydrocarbon derived monomer and
vegetable oil monomers could combine
the advantages of alkyds and synthetic emulsion, such as high molecular
weight, internal plasticization, the
potential to crosslink at ambient after
application and no added VOCs,” said
Thames.
Thames’ research group has focused
on the synthesis, characterization and
utility of vegetable oil macro-monomers (VOMMs) for this purpose.
“We have shown that VOMMs reduce
emissions, augment film formation,
function as internal plasticizers and
crosslink during cure to improve physical and chemical properties,” he said.
“No VOC, high performance coatings
are readily formulated from VOMM
derived lattices.”
Thames concluded his presentation
by saying that VOMM technology is
unique and constitutes a new platform
for polymer synthesis and no VOC
products. “VOMM technology is cost
effective and can be readily implemented into commercial markets. The
potential applications for vegetable oil
monomers and their use in polymer
