(374c) Multiscale Sustainability Assessment in Nanocoating Material Design and Manufacturing

Nanopaint has drawn great attention in the coatings industry, as it may offer surface coatings with significantly improved performance or new functionalities and properties, such as surface texture alteration control, self-healing, toxic chemical/acid/corrosive agent repelling, glass opaqueness control, building exterior’s infrared reflecting/absorbing properties control, and even pathogen growth control.  Nevertheless, it is under scrutiny for the environmental and health risks which may pose in nanopaint manufacturing and nanocoating realization.  Therefore, it is crucial to analyze the sustainability performance of nanocoating materials and prepare a roadmap for their successful development and application in the future.

In this paper, we introduce a systematic sustainability assessment methodology by resorting to multiscale science and sustainability science.  Different from known methodologies focusing on the assessment of manufacturing process and manufactured product, this methodology initiates the assessment starting at the nanomaterial formulation design stage.  A variety of material design parameters, such as those about polymer system, nanomaterial type, shape, size, and orientation, solvent and additives, are analyzed using a number of sustainability indicators, which will be incorporated into the analysis of coating manufacturing stages.  Multiscale models are developed to predict nanoparticle emission severity in nanopaint spray and curing, nanocoating properties, product realization process performance on quality assurance, waste reduction, and operational safety.  The efficacy of the multiscale sustainability assessment methodology will be demonstrated by the case studies on nanocoatings with super-scratch resistance performance and barrier property.  The introduced methodology is generic and can be applied to study the sustainability performance of a wide range of nanocoating materials in their early design stage.