Weathering around the World: discovering new market opportunities for sustainable organic coatings

背景：塔塔钢铁英国公司是欧洲最大的预涂钢生产商之一，生产的顶级产品在整个欧洲都有规定，主要用于建筑行业。为了保持这一地位，公司不断努力改善现有的产品范围，并寻找新的市场机会来支持销售增长。全球新市场的销售增长机会远离我们的核心市场，需要研究这些新市场的聚合物性能和气候条件，并确定这些市场的使用寿命建议。通过这项研究，建议可以给企业的产品使用，颜色的选择，机会和新市场的产品保证。该研究将涉及与塔塔业务密切合作，并研究新的可持续产品机会，新市场和世界各地的新客户。该项目的研究目标包括：-与企业合作，在全球范围内寻找新市场，研究典型的气候条件。由此，确定各种建筑应用的预制钢性能-与现有产品和未来的新产品一起工作，并就每个市场的产品适用性向企业提供建议-分析通过外部或加速测试已降解的材料。-使用紫外、ATR、FTIR和拉曼光谱等分析技术来确定有机涂层降解和侵蚀的机理和速率。-通过深度剖面和表面分析了解不同气候条件对涂层特性的影响。-进一步发展非破坏性技术，以评估风化样品的性能，如颜色、光泽、起泡形成和蠕变测量。对各种预涂钢产品在新市场的使用性能提出建议。

Background:Tata Steel UK is one of the largest producers of pre-painted steel in Europe and produces top range products which are specified throughout Europe, primarily for use in the construction industry. To maintain this position, the organisation is constantly trying to improve the current product range and look for new market opportunities to support sales growth. These sales growth opportunities in new markets throughout the world are away from our core markets and research is required to investigate the polymer performance and climatic conditions in these new markets and determine recommendations for longevity in these markets. Through this research, recommendations can be given to the business as to the products to be used, colour choice, opportunities and product guarantees for new markets. The research will involve working closely with the Tata business and research into new sustainable product opportunities, new markets and new customers throughout the world.The project aims of the research include: - Working in conjunction with the business, looking at new markets throughout the world and research typical climatic conditions. From this, determining the pre-finished steel performance for various construction applications- Working with current products and future new products and providing recommendations to the business as to product suitability per market- Analysing materials that have been degraded through external or accelerated testing.- Using analytical techniques such as UV, ATR FTIR and Raman spectroscopy to determine the mechanism and rates of organic coating degradation and erosion. - Understanding how different climatic conditions affect the coating characteristics using through depth profile and surface analysis.- Further developing non-destructive techniques to assess performance of weathered samples such as colour, gloss, blister formation and creep measurement.- Providing recommendations to the performance in use of various pre-painted steel products in the new markets.