Super-hydrophobic and super-olephobic coatings for the pipeline and other industries

固体表面的拒水拒油（或疏水性和疏油性）是材料的重要性质。一些天然固体表面，如荷叶，具有这种性质，并表现出有吸引力的优点。一个特殊的特点是减少液体与表面的摩擦，这将在各种工业部门中找到许多应用，包括水和石油运输管道和海洋船舶等。自清洁，绝缘，抗菌和防锈是从家庭和医院使用到建筑工业的具有广泛潜在应用的其他优点。尽管已经投入了很多兴趣来模仿天然超级，近年来，尽管已经有一些研究产生了具有高达160度的接触角的疏水表面，但是它们都不能可靠地产生具有足够机械强度的疏水表面。与使用其中纳米氧化物颗粒不能很好地结合在涂层表面上的液体涂覆程序的那些现有技术相比，提出了一种新的粉末涂覆方法来结合纳米氧化物颗粒，使得可以产生更耐用的氧化物涂层。概念验证研究表明，这是一种可行的方法，在产生疏水性和保持疏水涂层的耐久性。这项技术将给特种涂料行业带来革命性的变化。申请人在粉末加工和处理，包括粉末涂层方面有多年的经验。UWO的粒子技术研究中心和通过最近几次CFI赠款购买的大量设备将为拟议项目提供必要的基础设施。申请人还与许多粉末涂料公司建立了长期的合作关系，包括支持该项目的Shawcor。

Water and oil repellence (or hydrophobicity and olephobic) of a solid surface is an important property of materials. Some natural solid surfaces such as lotus leaves possess this property and demonstrate attractive advantages. One special feature is the reduction of the liquid-to-surface friction which would find many applications in various industrial sectors including water and oil transportation pipelines and marine vessels etc. Self-cleaning, insulation, antibacterial and rust-proof are the other advantages with wide potential applications from household and hospital use to the construction industry.Although much interest has been invested to mimic the natural super-hydrophobicity in recent years and some studies have produced hydrophobia surface with a contact angle as high as 160 degrees, none of them can produce reliably a hydrophobia surface with enough mechanical strength. In contrast to those prior arts that use liquid coating procedure where the nano hydrophobia particles cannot bond well on the coating surface, a new powder coating approach is proposed to bond the nano hydrophobia particles so that a much more durable hydrophobia coatings can be produced. Proof-of-concept study has shown that this is a viable approach in producing hydrophobicity and retaining the durability of hydrophobic coatings. This technology will bring revolutionary changes to the specialty coating industry. The proposed research is to further exploit this technology for commercialization.The applicant has had many years of experience in powder processing and handling, including powder coating. The Particle Technology Research Centre at UWO and the large amount of equipment purchased through several recent CFI grants will provide the necessary infrastructure for the proposed project. The applicant also has a long collaborating relationship with many powder coating companies including Shawcor who supports this project.