Coatings World - March 2009

The Technology Showcase focused on emerging technologies, new materials, innovative services and new equipment.

synthesis are numerous and exciting.”

The keynote lecture, “The Evolution of Architectural Coatings in a Green Market,” was given by John Gilbert of Behr Process Corporation. “As awareness about environmental protection has grown, development of greener coatings formulations has outpaced environmental regulations,” said Gilbert. “Satisfying the increasingly environmentally-savvy end-user has become the goal. Simply meeting regulations is not enough in today’s world.”

Gilbert went on to review some of the areas in which raw material suppliers and coatings formulators have been advancing paint technology for the benefit of the environment. Some of the examples he cited demonstrated more efficient use of resources, incorporation of non-crude-oil-based feedstocks, reduction and elimination of VOCs and increased use of environmentally friendly materials.

“Water latex paint has been the

basis for much technological innovation over the last 20 years,” said Gilbert. “The conversion from oil-based alkyd paints to waterborne latex paints provided an environmentally friendly technical foundation to be built upon for many years.”

Gilbert then went on to ask the audience, “What does it take to design the best product, one that goes beyond meeting regulations and delights customers with a great end-user experience and how can we best take into account sometimes conflicting design inputs and create a product that will bring the customer back every time?”

In order to answer these questions, Gilbert discussed green products and customer behavior, historical examples from the architectural coatings industry, current regulations, product design guidelines and design philosophy and some new tools from suppliers for building green products.

“Innovations continue at a rapid pace in the paint component sector, providing us with an unprecedentedly large toolbox of environmentally friendly resins, pigments and additives,” said Gilbert. “Remember the challenge. Let’s make informed choices about the chemistry we use to build our products. Let’s delight the customer with paint products that perform at a high quality level, have costs commensurate with their value and do no harm to the environment. Let’s design with the entire life cycle of the product in mind. Let’s reinvent.”

Other presentations included “New Binders for Waterborne Paints with

2009 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 37th Annual International Waterborne Symposium, Feb. 8-12, 2010 in New Orleans. Papers should relate to waterborne, high-solids, powder and radiation-curable coating systems; stimuli-responsive and “smart” coating systems; renewable raw materials for coatings and high-throughput methodologies for formulation. All papers should be original and represent recent advances in coatings science. Title, abstract and author’s names (speaker’s name underlined) should be submitted by mail, fax or e-mail no later than Aug. 14 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.

Improved Body and Gloss: Going for Gold” presented by Sandeep Bhatt of DSM NeoResins; “Mechanisms for Combating Macro and Microfoam in Low VOC Waterborne Systems” presented by Charles Douglas of Evonik Industries-Tego Coatings Additives and Specialty Resins; “Ultra Low VOC Water-Based Polyurethane Coatings with Outstanding Graffitti Resistance” presented by Peter Schmitt of Bayer MaterialScience; “Oxylink: Improved Resistance for Waterborne Coatings” presented by Steffen Pilotek of Buhler Inc.; “New High Performance Alkyl Pheno-Free Surfactants with Improved Physical Properties” presented by Ana Maria Fernandez of Cognis Corp.; and “New Waterborne Cationic Resins for Wood and Metal Primers” presented by Ming Tsang of Cytec Industries Inc.

One of the highlights of this annual event is the Best Paper Awards Ceremony, in which a panel of judges bestows awards for Outstanding Student Poster and Best Paper. Outstanding Poster – Undergraduate was awarded to Lacey Harris for her poster, “Production of the ABH1 Hydrophobin Protein via Recombinant Methods” and Outstanding Poster – Graduate was awarded to Adam Smith for “Reversible Gold - ‘Locking’ of Nanostructure derived from Multi-Responsive Block Copolymers Synthesized by RAFT Polymerization.” The Outstanding Paper Award was given to Michael Johnson of Dow Coating Solutions for “High Throughput Methods for Developing Waterborne Coating Formulations.” Finally, the Shelby F. Thames Best Paper Award was presented to Yoann Lefeuvre of Formulaction for “Optical Film Formation Analysis.”

In addition to the main technical program, the Waterborne Symposium also included a student poster session and a two-day Technology Showcase consisting of tabletop technical exhibits. The showcase gives attendees the opportunity to learn about emerging technologies, new materials, innovative services and new equipment in an exhibit-type format.