Grant: Idea to Innovation

In marine engineering, virtually all ships and vessels contain an anti-fouling coating to prevent loss in performance due to bio-fouling. However, growing concerns over the environmental hazards of these coatings have created a growing demand for new eco-friendly technologies which maintain protection of the vessel. To protect and preserve the efficient function of objects exposed to the environment, a sustainable approach is the application of low surface energy surface coatings that exhibit hydrophobicity/superhydrophobicity, such as poly(tetrafluorethylene) (PTFE, ie. Teflon®). To maintain the effectiveness of these coatings, high-performance adhesives are required which can maintain strong adhesion between the outer surface-layer with the object, which can be metal, commodity plastic, fibre-glass, wood, etc. This project will develop adhesive materials featuring recently developed novel amine-functionalized polyethylene (APE) as adhesives for the application of low-surface energy top-coats of PTFE. Maintaining adhesion to PTFE is a large and ever-growing technical challenge that lacks practical and sustainable approaches. This project will result in a scalable process for the synthesis of new adhesive coatings for PTFE, optimized polymers and formulations for adhesive use and a suite of related IP that builds upon recent PCT patent applications. This work is critical to the advance a start-up company, a2o Materials Inc. Owing to the enormous demand in the marine market for new eco-friendly coating formulations that prevent bio-fouling and reduce drag all while remaining non-toxic, the APE adhesive for coating and adhering PTFE will be developed for this challenging commercial application.