Growth of marine organisms such as barnacles and algae on surfaces of ships is an age old problem which results in deterioration of ship performance and increased fuel consumption. For the last several decades this problem has been addressed by the use of coatings which incorporated toxic organo tin compounds. Due to environmental problems caused by release of these materials, their use has been recently prohibited by international treaty.
To maintain marine efficiency, new non-toxic biofoul release coatings are needed. We are actively working on the preparation of such novel environmentally friendly biofoul release, anti-corrosion coatings for marine applications.

This project requires synthesis of novel siloxane polymers. We also work on crosslinking these to yield coatings. Properties of the polymers must be designed to permit crosslinking to yield hydrophobic coatings with desired properties. Among these are low surface energy, low modulus, and low glass transition temperature.

Graduate students synthesize novel ring strained cyclosiloxane monomers. We development methods to polymerize these to yield reactive siloxane polymers and further utilize polymer reactivity to control crosslinking chemistry to prepare films. Preparation of branched polysiloxanes such as star and hyperbranched is actively pursued. Synthesis of copolymers with controlled molecular weight distribution and microstructure is essential.
Complete spectroscopic characterization of novel monomers, polymers and copolymers is essential. ²⁹Si NMR is particularly useful for characterization of polysiloxanes. The thermal properties (glass transition temperature Tg, thermal stability TGA and differential thermo- mechanical DTMA properties of polymers and coatings are determined. Development of new crosslinking chemistry is a major area of study. Photo generated acid catalyzed crosslinking as well as amine/epoxy cures are actively studied. Surface energies of coatings are measure by static, and dynamic contact angle measurements. Active collaborations with several marine biology groups (Professors Callow, U. of Birmingham, England, and D. Wendt, California State U. San Luis Obispo, CA) permit us to test our coatings properties against marine organisms as biofoul release coatings. The corrosion resistance of our films is done in collaboration with Professor F. Mansfeld of the Materials Science Dept. at USC.

We believe that work in this area provides significant breadth of training for graduate students.

Chemical modification of polymers is area of long standing interest. We are interested in utilizing ruthenium catalysis to activate the ortho C-H bond of aromatic ketones for anti-Markovnikov addition across the C-C double bonds of vinyl siloxanes.