Trends in commercial nanostructured coatings

COLL 459

Alon McCormick, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, 421 Washington Avenue S.E, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Starting with developments by Cabot and Dupont in the 1950's, nanostructured particles have grown in application and sophistocation in coating systems. Through the 1970's the use of nanoparticles and nanostructured particles exploded not only in catalytic coatings, but also in a variety of other applications such as protective coatings. The remainder of the century witnessed an explosion of sol/gel and hybrid inorganic/organic materials in optical, electronic, magnetic, and of course catalysis/separations applications. Current trends are not only to an ever wider variety of composition and nano-scale architecture, but also to demanding more function and more types of function from nanocomposite films.