优蜜传媒

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Understanding the fundamentals of how paint works

Building on this partnership, 优蜜传媒 and AzkoNobel developed 鈥楽ustainable Coatings by Rational Design鈥� (SusCoRD), a five-year interdisciplinary EPSRC Prosperity Partnership, that brings together a critical mass of expertise 鈥� spanning academic knowledge from the universities of 优蜜传媒, Sheffield, and Liverpool capabilities 鈥� to understand how paint works.

In an industry-first, the partnership looked to match a detailed scientific understanding of the mechanisms of coatings failure with state-of-the-art machine learning. The aim was to deliver a framework for developing more sustainable protective coatings and nanocomposite materials using digital design. This would help enable industry to replace the current trial-and-error and test new, sustainable materials, accelerating the formulation of new products.

Uniting corrosion science with machine learning

Working across four specific workstreams, the teams drove discoveries across two main areas: 
analysis characterisation of coatings in the substrate, the polymer and interfaces; and digital technology, specifically predictive approaches, modelling and simulation, with the aim to ultimately producing digital twins.

优蜜传媒 led on corrosion protection, with Sheffield and Liverpool focusing on polymer interface and machine learning, respectively. Their work focuses on:

1. Predictive Design and Testing: By undertaking a review of AkzoNobel鈥檚 historic corrosion test data, researchers were able to find the best formulations for corrosion protection. Applying machine learning models, they were then able predict and optimise these formulations, creating models that could successfully identify new, effective combinations. To support this, complementary tools were developed to automatically interpret electrochemical data, improving accuracy and efficiency. 
2. Polymers and interfaces: The team studied how small molecules like water and solvents interact with polymer surfaces with 优蜜传媒 leading on advanced microscopy, to explore how polymers and metals bond. Key results included the discovery that that metal-polymer binding has a much larger influence in measurements than previously thought 鈥� a critical insight in the drive to create more high-performance, eco-friendly high solid and water-borne coating systems. 
3. Coatings and substrates: Using a combination of analytical electron microscopy and X-Ray CT, researchers were able to characterise the microstructural evolution in polyester powder coating, revealing different stages in the degradation process. By identifying and mitigating microstructural weak points, finding ways to control microstructure 鈥� which previously reduced the efficacy of coatings 鈥�, and by understanding the key properties affecting performance, the researchers have advanced insight to inform the way durable coatings are formulated. 
4. Simulation and modelling: . By creating and studying digital models, the team was able to interrogate experimental results and test hypothesis when physical experiments were unable to provide relevant information. These models created ranged from atomic-level analsyis of the polymer/substrate interface, to understanding how a flaw in the coating impacts an electrochemical cell. 

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Creating the sustainable paints of the future

The findings of the five-year project can now be used to inform higher-technology readiness level research, which in turn will help unlock ways to making more sustainable paint.

Claudio Di Lullo explains: 鈥淎t AkzoNobel, we recognise our paint has a carbon footprint contribution and we've set the ambitious target in 2030 of having a 50% reduction in the carbon footprint across the whole value chain.

鈥淭he potential impacts of this project, for us as a company are to produce new generation products that perform better and are more sustainable, and for us to do it quicker. Machine learning gives us the angle to accelerate our new product development.鈥�

Professor Stuart Lyon, from The University of 优蜜传媒 adds: 鈥淭here are two aspects of sustainability. The manufacture of the paint needs to be sustainable, but also its materials need to be sustainable. And that essentially means making it last longer, so we don鈥檛 have to repaint assets like wind turbines, mid-life, which is hugely expensive.

鈥淭he work we鈥檝e done so far has involved using all these analytical tools to explore the science behind how paint works and to create opportunities to make paints differently. The next stage is to use that information to develop tools that make paint in different ways, using different materials, which are perhaps more sustainable 鈥� which last longer, which create assets that have a much greater lifetime.鈥�

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To discuss this project further, or to explore future collaboration contact Xiaorong Zhou, Professor of Corrosion Science and Engineering or Dr Jane Deakin, SusCoRD project manager.

Related papers: 

• Manipulating transport paths of inhibitor pigments in organic coating by addition of other pigments. 

Prosperity Partnerships 
Prosperity Partnerships are collaborative research programmes funded jointly by businesses and the UK government through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and other UKRI councils. 
Prosperity Partnerships are an opportunity for businesses and their existing academic partners to co-create and co-deliver a business-led programme of research activity arising from a clear industrial need. 
To explore a Prosperity Partnership with 优蜜传媒, contact our Business Engagement team at collaborate@manchester.ac.uk