Rigoberto Advincula
Professor
Case Western Reserve University

Rigoberto Advincula is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS). He is also a member of NACE, SPE, MRS and AAAS, and a frequently sought-out speaker and expert in polymer materials, coatings and sensors. A member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) of the Philippines, he is also Editor in Chief of MRS Communications, Past-Reactive and Functional Polymers and Polymer Reviews. He consults for a number of companies focusing on the most challenging problems and definition of structure-property relationships towards commercial applications.

Nanostructured Industrial Coatings: From Superhydrophobic to High-Temperature Properties
Polymer and nanocomposite industrial coatings play an important role in preventing corrosion and also influencing the wetting properties of surfaces in industrial construction, pipes and storage tanks in any process industry. Materials and methods reported have been exposed to environments from the upstream all the way to the downstream in any processing, refining and reaction processing operations. Nanostructuring of these coatings is taken for granted, especially when using very expensive nanomaterial additives, resulting in low performance/cost ratio reporting. In this talk, we will describe the used of nanostructured coatings for corrosion mitigation, non-wetting and their interesting applications with high-temperature environments. The use and characterization of polythiophenes, polbenzoxazines and nanocomposite coatings is described. We also describe the use polymer aerogels capable of efficient solvent and oil/water separation. The nanostructuring mechanism during fabrication involves house-of-card interactions where charges generated on the surface of the nanoplatelets compliments the chemistry that can be done on the surface. Graphene oxide (GO) additives also enhance their ability for surface chemistry. This enables nanomaterials to form hierarchical structures capable of anti-corrosion, super-non-wetting and separation of immiscible liquids. Important surface analytical and characterization methods will be described. High-value adding in formulations of nanomaterials in coating becomes advantageous.