Date: Wednesday, March 9th, 2016

Time: 11:00 AM

Location: Building 4, Room 125

King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, KSA

 

Industrially-promising, waterborne latex polyurethane coatings have been prepared by emulsion polymerization of various agricultural oils including soybean, corn and linseed oils.  These environmentally friendly coatings have low contents of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) compared to other coatings.  As expected, the thermal and mechanical properties, as well as the long term environmental durability of the material, are shown to be highly dependent on vegetable-oil composition, processing conditions, and co-monomer chemistry.  Both anionic and cationic bio-based dispersions, as well as their resulting films, were characterized using tensile testing, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA).  The cationic polyurethane dispersions have potential applications as coatings for food packaging materials due to their antimicrobial activities. 

 

 

Dr. Thomas Garrison is an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.  He is an expert in the synthesis and characterization of polymers and composites.  His interdisciplinary field of research draws on organic chemistry, materials science, and polymer engineering.  He spent nearly two years in industry working as a Quality Assurance Manager and Product Manager for BioBased Technologies, where he oversaw the third-party certification (listing and labeling) of two polyurethane spray foam insulation products and quality control manuals at two different manufacturing facilities.  His honors include a National Science Foundation Graduate STEM Fellowship in K-12 Education.  He has 4 peer review journal papers and conference proceedings and has presented 4 talks at national and international meetings.