Date: Jun 06, 2008 Source: MDA (
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Ensures domestic tranquility by enabling public-works employees to easily remove urban "artwork" that defaces buildings, bridges, and overpasses. The environmentally friendly, thin-film plastic material, a nonstick fluoropolymer, can be applied like wallpaper to graffiti-prone infrastructure.
Integument's anti-corrosive FluoroGrip® appliqué can reduce the effort required of public works employees to remove graffiti from building walls and highway overpasses. The nonstick flouropolymer appliqué material allows paint to be quickly washed off.
How it works
The appliqué closely resembles wallpaper; it is a thin, flexible material that has an adhesive on one side, which bonds to the surface being covered. Unlike wallpaper, which just has an aesthetic purpose, Integument's material provides corrosion protection and can be engineered to provide other benefits as well.
Integument bases its appliqué on a family of plastics called fluoropolymers, which are highly regarded for their resistance to a wide variety of chemicals and temperatures up to 475°F as well as their being environmentally friendly. The material's nonstick surfaces (e.g., Teflon®) are fluropolymers that also prevent filth and grime from building up, reducing cleaning and maintenance. In addition, fluoropolymers can be colored or have patterns created in them.
Integument's FluoroGrip easily can be applied to products, such as the outdoor storage tank shown above, to protect against rust, corrosion, and even graffiti.
A patented surface-activation process with cold gas plasma treatment modifies the surface of the fluoropolymer and allows bonding with a pressure-sensitive adhesive. This creates the technology's unique "peel-and-stick" capability, which can be applied on a wide variety of materials including other polymers, adhesives, ceramics, coatings, composites, and metals. The appliqué offers superior mechanical-, thermal-, and chemical/environmental-resistance properties to those of paints currently used in industry and the military. Additionally, its fabrication, application, maintenance, removal, and disposal do not harm the environment.
The appliqué ranges in thickness from 1 to 30 mil; most applications require thicknesses of 2 to 5 mil.
Status of the product
Integument's appliqué is being sold commercially.
For missile defense
Integument was funded to develop appliqué materials with embedded corrosion sensors for in-situ corrosion detection. Such devices would be ideal for use on MDA structures located in warm, humid, and salty environments like the South Pacific.
