Conducting Thermosetting Polymers for Composite Coatings

这项资助将启动Elcora Advanced Materials （Halifax, Nova Scotia）和Michael Freund博士（Dalhousie大学化学系）之间的合作。Elcora是高品质碳材料（特别是石墨和石墨烯）的生产商，并已将防腐涂层确定为其材料的重要未来应用。到2022年，全球防腐涂料市场预计将达到266.27亿美元，随着石墨烯作为目前含有有毒化合物的涂料的有吸引力的替代品的出现，Elcora处于开发加拿大制造的新型涂料的理想位置，并显着扩大其客户群。然而，由于在涂料方面的经验有限，开发新知识产权以生产产品的机会有限，埃尔科拉无法进入市场。Freund博士的团队在材料和聚合物科学领域拥有超过二十年的经验，包括防腐涂层的合成和表征。他的团队开发了新的热固性共轭聚合物，可以与Elcora Advanced Materials生产的纳米片状石墨和石墨烯结合，产生具有防腐性能的新型高性能涂层。在Freund博士的团队中，Elcora的工程师和研究人员开发了配方和涂层方法，这将为Elcora Advanced Materials产生新的产品线。在Freund博士的小组中，薄膜的特性将为不同行业的新涂层市场提供所需的性能指标。

This Engage grant will initiate a collaboration between Elcora Advanced Materials (Halifax, Nova Scotia) and Dr. Michael Freund (Chemistry, Dalhousie University). Elcora is a producer of high-quality carbon materials - specifically graphite and graphene - and has identified anticorrosion coatings as an important future application for their materials. The global anti-corrosion coating market is expected to reach $26,627 million by 2022 and with the recent emergence of graphene as an attractive replacement to current coatings that contain toxic compounds, Elcora is ideally positioned to develop new, made in Canada, coatings and significantly expand their customer base. However, with limited experience in coatings and limited opportunity to develop new intellectual property to generate products, Elcora is unable to enter the market. Dr. Freund's group has over two decades of experience in the field of material and polymer science including the synthesis and characterization of anticorrosion coatings. His group has developed new thermosetting conjugated polymers that can be combined with nano-platelet graphite and graphene produced by Elcora Advanced Materials to generate new, high-performance coatings with anticorrosion properties. Elcora engineers and researchers in Dr. Freund's group develop formulations and coating methods that will generate a new product line for Elcora Advanced Materials. Characterization of the films in Dr. Freund's group will provide performance metrics required to market the new coating for various industries.