Australian and American researchers and businesses are partnering to bring new manufacturing technologies to market
Paint fit for a Dreamliner
Next time you board a new Boeing Dreamliner, take note of its Australian paint.
Developed by researchers at CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, ‘Paintbond’ has now been adopted across the entire Boeing aircraft fleet, and more than 1,000 aircraft have been re-coated using the technology so far.
Why is it better? The new spray-on topcoat paint technology saves time, reduces the impact on the environment, and is safer to use.
Miniscule plastic particles with the potential to cause havoc in our waterways and oceans have been found in the stomachs of over a quarter of fish sampled in Sydney Harbour.
Named microplastics, the tiny plastic fragments, beads and fibres are sometimes made directly as beads, and sometimes created by the break-down of plastics used in clothing, packaging, fishing gear, nappies and wipes.
John Nutt helped design and analyse the sails of the iconic Sydney Opera House early in a career that saw him pioneer the use of computers in engineering, and contribute to the first fire code for buildings.
Kevin Galvin’s invention of the Reflux Classifier has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits to the Australian economy, and revolutionised mineral processing around the world. It maximises mineral recovery by improving the recovery of fine, but still valuable, particles. Continue reading Making plastics, mining, and engineering→
Many plastics and polymers—including paints, glues and lubricants—will be transformed in the coming years by the work of Australian chemists, Professors David Solomon and Ezio Rizzardo.
David Solomon (left) and Ezio Rizzardo (right) with Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Credit: Prime Minister’s Science Prizes/Irene Dowdy
Their work is integral to more than 500 patents and their techniques are used in the labs and factories of DuPont, L’Oréal, IBM, 3M, Dulux and more than 60 other companies.
Eventually, the pair’s chemical theories and processes will influence hundreds of products.
New lubricants containing star-shaped polymers have hit the market, thanks to Australian polymer technology. Lubrizol Corporation has launched the first commercial products developed using CSIRO’s Reversible Addition Fragmentation chain Transfer (RAFT) polymer synthesis process.
Asteric ™ Viscosity Modifiers are tailor-made star-shaped polymers made possible by RAFT Credit: Lubrizol
CSIRO chemist Dr Ezio Rizzardo says the RAFT process allows much greater flexibility and potential for polymer synthesis, compared with conventional methods. “Conventional polymerisation is a relatively simple process with two ingredients: large amounts of monomer and a small amount of an initiating agent. You apply heat; a chain reaction starts and runs to completion, making polymer chains that can have widely varying lengths.” Continue reading Star-shaped polymers boost engine performance→
Each year we identify early-career scientists with a discovery and bring them to Melbourne for a communication boot camp. Here are some of their stories.
Jacek Jasieniak sprinkling quantum dots. Credit: Jacek Jasieniak
Imagine printing your own room lighting, lasers, or solar cells from inks you buy at the local newsagent. Jacek Jasieniak and colleagues at CSIRO, the University of Melbourne and the University of Padua in Italy, have developed liquid inks based on quantum dots that can be used to print such devices and in the first demonstration of their technology have produced tiny lasers. Quantum dots are made of semiconductor material grown as nanometre-sized crystals, around a millionth of a millimetre in diameter. The laser colour they produce can be selectively tuned by varying their size.
Colin Scholes operates a test rig for his carbon capture membrane. Credit: CO2 CRC
High tech cling wraps that ‘sieve out’ carbon dioxide from waste gases can help save the world, says Melbourne University chemical engineer, Colin Scholes who developed the technology. The membranes can be fitted to existing chimneys where they capture CO2 for removal and storage. Not only are the new membranes efficient, they are also relatively cheap to produce. They are already being tested on brown coal power stations in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley, Colin says. “We are hoping these membranes will cut emissions from power stations by up to 90 per cent.”
Seabirds on one of Australia’s remotest islands have plastic in their stomachs.
A flesh-footed shearwater surveys the contents of its stomach Credit: Ian Hutton
A recent survey found more than 95 per cent of the migratory flesh-footed shearwaters nesting on Lord Howe Island, between Australia and the northern tip of New Zealand, had swallowed plastic garbage.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, plastic has been shown to bind poisonous pollutants. As a result, some shearwaters were found with concentrations of mercury more than 7,000 times the level considered toxic.
