SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase-I project employs the development of intelligent and sustainable coating technology to present a game changing option to the corrosion protection coating industry. The annual global cost of corrosion is estimated to be US$2.5 trillion while USA alone has to lose more than $1 trillion. The global anticorrosion coating market has been valued for more than US$14 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach beyond US$26 billion in 2022. Apart from inferior performance, currently available corrosion prevention coatings pose significant threat to the environment and human health. It is very hard for the poor and developing countries to bear the related costs. Development of this multifunctional coating will afford them a safer alternative for protecting their assets. In preliminary experiments, this coating innovation has shown significant potential in preventing corrosion and biofouling activity on the treated surface. The thermal analysis and nanomechanical analysis have indicated that these coatings have exceptionally high thermal and mechanical stability approaching that of ceramic materials. Based on the preliminary data, it is safe to state that these coatings present a breakthrough in the area of surface protection through barrier coatings. The intellectual merit of this project includes the development of user friendly multifunctional coating for wide variety of substrates. Historically, chromate conversion coatings (CCC) have been extensively used in preventing metals from corroding. However, there are serious concerns over the use of CCC as it poses human health risks. Carcinogenic hexavalent chromium ions used in coating technology for the corrosion protection of metals are being phased out by Environmental Protection Agency in USA and Registration Evaluation Authorization and Restrictions of Chemicals regulation in Europe. The key innovation of this project is the development of a liquid precursor to a transparent strong ceramic-like coating that can protect substrates from harsh environmental conditions. This ready to use thin coating, suitable for application in the automobile and aerospace industries, adheres strongly to most substrates, adds minimal weight and can be transparent or pigmented. Besides corrosion protection, the coating can also provide scratch resistance, oleophobicity, and possibly anti-microbial properties to numerous surfaces.

This SBIR Phase II project aims to develop and commercialize a transparent, thin multifunctional coating for corrosion and biofouling prevention on coated surface. Its environmentally friendly product will be an efficient ready-to-use single component product that can be applied with ease, and would dry in ambient conditions without the need for external heating equipment. The global annual expenditure to mitigate corrosion is in the range of $2.5 trillion, roughly equal to 3.4% of the world's GDP. Protecting assets from corrosion is, hence, a critical requirement for all the industries. A broad range of applications can benefit from this coating technology such as aviation industry where removal of toxic chromium compounds from coating procedures is of high priority, automobile manufacturing where extended corrosion protection to vehicles without using toxic treatments is constantly sought, structural engineering where providing long life protection to bridges is always needed, marine engineering where protecting ships from corrosion and not contributing to ecological imbalance is long sought, military where minimizing the maintenance downtime of tanks and guns is of prime importance, hospitals that are interested in longer lasting medical implants, and paints and coating industry that is desiring removal of volatile organic components from their paints and coatings. The proposed coating is expected to offer scratch resistance and oleophobic characteristics in addition to corrosion protection. The initial success of this project will result in two high-volume products.This project aims to develop a specialized single-part, ready-to-use, nominally bioceramic liquid coating for protection against corrosion and fouling activities. On application over desired surface, this transparent liquid transforms into hard-yet-flexible coating. This thin coating composition consists of in-place generated nanoparticles of organometallic compounds in the 3D network of polysilsesquioxane. The reactivity of the precursor to coating is designed such that material can react with substrates in ambient conditions and dries to solid film without the need of any external heating. The hardened coating adheres to most surfaces including metals, ceramics, plastics, glasses, and wood. The optimum thickness of coating is approximately ten microns and can impart various desired surface functionalities to the coated object. In this project, efforts are directed towards optimization of current composition to be compatible with broad range of commercially available topcoat materials. The optimized coating composition will be subjected to a rapid properties screening before third party testing, validation and approvals. An extensive field testing will be conducted in collaboration with potential customers. This innovative coating technology will initially result into two products that can be used in place of carcinogenic hexavalent chromium compounds that are currently in use for the corrosion protection of metals. While one of the products would act as a corrosion prevention compound that can adhere to commercial topcoat paints, the other would act as self-cleaning coating to prevent biofouling activities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.