Review: The University of Southern Mississippi's Twenty-Ninth Annual Waterborne, High-Solids, and Powder Coating Symposium
The presentations were all extraordinarily well done, but certain topics and papers will be briefly discussed. Dr. Shelby F. Thames kicked off the symposium with an introduction to The University of Southern Mississippi, which is located in Hattiesburg, MS. He described the heritage of the university and of the conference. Dr. Thames described the educational institution, faculty, and students as well as the role these play in the coating and polymer science world.
Combinatorial chemistry or high throughput screening are among the many names applied to the technique of rapidly screening large numbers of samples. The technique holds promise for shortening development times, for decreasing the time to bring technological breakthroughs to fruition, and to yield enormous increases in productivity in the coating industry. The pharmaceutical industry first applied this technology about two decades ago with great success. Today one pharmaceutical company claims to be able to screen as many as 200,000 drug candidates per day. Two papers that dealt with this topic were presented at the symposium. One paper explained the technique, how it is used in the pharmaceutical industry, and how it applies to the coating industry. The other paper was concerned with a particular combinatorial method that was devised for development of a clear coating for plastic substrates. The highly automated process had the capability of evaluating 100-200 coatings per day. Coatings were prepared, applied, and cured. Then they were evaluated for optical clarity, abrasion resistance, and adhesion. Computer software, including a database, was used for data management and storage. The technique enhanced the rate of product development. There was strong conference attendee interest in the presentations as evidenced by numerous questions that were well answered by the presenters.