Watching this paint dry could actually be fun
Hey, if you had as much stuff to paint as the Army, you would be looking for ways to streamline the job as well.
Ashok Kumar and Dave Stephenson have been working on an idea that could make it really easy, at least as far as covering scratches and dings from wear and tear go.
Get the paint to repaint itself, kind of.
Kumar is the program manager and Stephenson the project manager in an Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory effort to add self-healing properties to surface coatings such as paints.
They've now tested the technology in the field on steel water tanks and on pipes at a tank wash (think jumbo car wash for heavily armored rides) at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Campbell in Kentucky, and are working on commercializing it.
Dow Chemical, which might further develop the technology for automobile paint, for example, is one potential partner in what could become a cooperative research and development agreement, said the two materials scientists and Dana Finney, the Champaign Army lab's spokeswoman.
Ashok Kumar, left, and Dave Stephenson, materials scientists at the Army Construction Engineering Research Lab, display a bottle of microcapsules April 25 at the lab that can be added to paint to help it heal itself after it has been scratched or dinged. The capsules release a film-forming sealant and anti-corrosive when ruptured. By Vanda Bidwell
The lab, known as CERL, is part of the Army Corps of Engineers. It develops ways to better build, operate and maintain military facilities, many of which find uses in civilian life.
The self-healing coating research falls under the Defense Department's Corrosion Prevention and Control Program, which tends to do a lot of technology transfer for commercialization, Finney said.
Kumar said CERL has essentially minimized the risk of refining the technology by proving the basic concept.
"If the companies think this makes sense to them, they'll run with it," he said.
Steel bridges, oil rigs, outdoor air-conditioning units, wooden houses – the list of potential uses is extensive.
Kumar said the technology could offer safety benefits as well, for instance in the case of old, toxic lead-based paint that has been left in place and coated to seal in the hazard.
A self-healing coating would help make sure it stays that way.
Kumar and Stephenson have been working on self-healing coatings for about a decade. They have filed two patents and have published more than a dozen research papers on the technology.
Kumar said the Navy first started working on the idea with self-healing paint for its aluminum-alloy aircraft in mind. But there was a problem. The Navy couldn't afford even the few extra pounds the special coating would add to an aircraft, especially on planes expected to land and take off in the tight confines of a carrier deck. CERL took it up after Naval researchers stopped development.
"We have taken it to the field," Kumar said.
The technology, while developed separately, also is similar to self-healing materials on which University of Illinois researchers have been working.
At its roots are tiny capsules 60 to 100 microns in size – grains of pollen generally range from 10 to 100 microns in diameter, grains of fine sand 100 to 150 – with liquid materials inside.
Capsules developed by Kumar and Stephenson contain an anti-corrosive, which keeps a scratch, for instance, from rusting while a film-forming sealant, also part of the package, flows over the wound and cures.
When a surface gets scratched, dented or otherwise damaged, some of the capsules rupture and the healing materials are released.
"The scratch will heal itself rather than expanding," Kumar said.
The capsules also can hold a red or a fluorescent dye to mark damaged areas and make them easy to identify for more extensive repair work, Stephenson noted.
He and Kumar are developing the capsules to be scooped into standard paints or primers. They need to be compatible chemically and that's one of the challenges.
Likewise, getting the right materials and mix of them inside so the healing action occurs optimally.
"It's like a recipe," Kumar said.
The capsules don't work with just any commercially available paint yet, although that's the ultimate goal, but the researchers did use compatible off-the-shelf products for their field trials, Stephenson said.
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