BGSU Scientists Create Award-Winning Coating to Preserve National Park Service Landmarks

Researchers at Bowling Inexperienced State College’s Heart for Photochemical Sciences have developed a promising coating system for preserving historic landmarks – and probably far more.

A group together with Joe Furgal, assistant professor of chemistry at BGSU, doctoral scholar Cory Sims and postdoctoral researcher Chamika Lenora used three completely different types of chemistry to develop an organosilicon hybrid coating system that would lengthen lifetime of a number of surfaces topic to excessive stresses. erosion ranges, together with nationwide monuments, historic buildings, statues, graveyard stones and buildings.

Funded by the Nationwide Park Service, the US Division of the Inside and the Nationwide Heart for Preservation Know-how and Coaching, the analysis group sought a strategy to mitigate environmental injury whereas growing a coating that hardened rapidly however had a protracted life. lifespan and might be utilized in a number of methods.

Their outcomes to this point have been each encouraging and award-winning. Presenting the analysis on the Polymer Initiative of Northeast Ohio convention in October at Case Western College, Sims gained the PPG Alternative Poster Award.

Initially, Furgal was growing a coating system to make boat surfaces extra hydrophobic or water repellent, however noticed that the park service was on the lookout for analysis to make the supplies erosion resistant. The match was pure.

“I got here up with this coating system and initially designed it for boats, but it surely was only a proposal on the time and we hadn’t finished something but,” Furgal stated. “After I noticed the Nationwide Park grant, I assumed, ‘I ponder if we are able to use such a coating for monument preservation.'”

After a full yr of testing, BGSU researchers discovered their system to be, briefly, efficient on all kinds of surfaces.

“They might apply it to something stone, metal, iron, glass, concrete, brick, wooden — just about something besides materials,” Sims stated. “Ideally this will cut back erosion and will help with graffiti as you possibly can simply wipe Sharpie or spray paint as soon as the coating has been utilized with just a bit elbow grease.”

A hybrid method

The BGSU group used three distinct chemistries (UV-initiated thiol-ene response, amine/epoxy response, and alkoxysilane sol-gel treatment) to attain the fascinating qualities of every technique whereas lowering their much less fascinating qualities.

Acrylics want lengthy curing occasions, which may make them tough to make use of with surfaces which can be already outside. Fluoropolymers comparable to Teflon pose environmental issues and can’t be used on all surfaces, whereas some epoxies are vulnerable to oxidation and discoloration when eroded.

Additionally they took on the problem of easy methods to take a look at the coating with out utilizing a meteorometer — an ultraviolet weathering approach that simulates solar publicity on coatings — to check quite a lot of excessive climates, so that they improvised.

“We mainly needed to create our personal climate programs at first, however finally determined that testing contained in the constructing wasn’t possible,” Furgal stated. “As an alternative, we determined to go to the roof of the constructing and put them there in the actual world. We had a yr of real-world examine earlier than releasing something.

They moved the coated surfaces, together with stone and glass, to the roof of the bodily science lab constructing on campus, subjecting them to one in every of their geographic benefits: Northern Ohio’s local weather causes many kinds of erosion.

“Fortunately Ohio is fairly good since now we have all of it: plenty of rain, plenty of ice, plenty of snow, excessive warmth, excessive chilly,” Sims stated. “We do not have wildfires or sandstorm kind circumstances, however they’ve seen nearly the whole lot else.”

Good marks

Throughout testing, the tri-system coating samples confirmed improved hydrophobicity and fewer untimely reactivity to a number of kinds of erosion on many surfaces: glass, metal, wooden, marble, granite, brick, and nitrile, all of which have benefited from the coating.

Wooden stays the first building materials for a lot of historic buildings, which generally is a problem to keep up as wooden is each porous and flammable. Just like the brick, nonetheless, sampling confirmed that the floor absorbed the coating, making it extra proof against water injury.

Moreover, flame resistance checks have proven promise. Throughout publicity to direct flames, handled wooden retained its form and self-extinguished 11 seconds after the flames disappeared, which was 90% sooner than untreated wooden, exhibiting attainable software for picket buildings in areas inclined to forest fires.

Coated stone surfaces noticed year-round have demonstrated long-term stability, even in outside environments uncovered to temperatures starting from sub-zero to over 100 levels Fahrenheit, which might make it ultimate for stone monuments comparable to graves.

Whereas the analysis was geared toward fixing a Nationwide Park Service drawback, it additionally confirmed that the coating system might be utilized much more broadly. The researchers at the moment have a patent pending and are engaged on each licensing and commercialization alternatives for start-up firms.

“We discovered it labored,” Sims stated with fun. “When you had requested me a yr in the past I’d have stated I’d have been joyful if it solely labored on stone, however we discovered it labored on a lot greater than that.”