As organizations increasingly focus on the life cycle cost rather than the initial cost of high-performance protective and marine coatings, formulators are being asked for more-durable solutions that retain their properties for longer periods in harsher environments.1-3 The oil and gas industry, for example, requires new protective coatings that can withstand the elevated temperatures and pressures encountered when drilling at greater depths. The hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, industry is asking for new coatings to better protect pipelines and storage tanks against harsh mixtures of chemicals that are being transported and stored at higher temperatures. Infrastructure and marine coatings need to last longer so that equipment or vessels do not have to be taken out of service as frequently for repairs and repainting.
In many cases, the weak link preventing a coating formulation from achieving the desired level of performance is the resin system. Resins must maintain targeted properties under long-term exposure to combinations of temperature, light, thermal cycling, humidity, water, various chemical mixtures, substrate movement and other forces. Under these conditions, resins can undergo decomposition by a variety of mechanisms, leading to product failure – often in the form of cracking. One example of this phenomenon is illustrated in Figure 1.