Sunday, April 22, 2007

On Her Majesties Occult Service

Charles Stross's excellent spy/horror thriller. Just think what James Bond would do if he had to face an evil mastermind who summons demons from the nether world. Well and James is a computer tech... with a palm pilot and no Walther PPK. But he does get the bond girl... err... umm... physics professor. As a scifi author Stross turns a good sentence and injects a bit of reality into spy work... with some unknown horrors and magic.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Current projects at work

Some people wonder what a polymer scientist is much less what they do. Currently I am working on several projects:

  • Wood composites for commercializing alternate crop
    • Developing soy bean protein based adhesives
      to replace existing petroleum based adhesives
    • Urea formaldehyde (UF) resins are commonly
      used in commercial particle board manufacture
      • Formaldehyde is a carcinogen and is federally
        regulated
      • Recently California imposed stricter regulations
        cutting emissions 80% by 2012
      • This level is barely above the formaldehyde emissions
        of wood naturally
    • Currently our adhesive matches or surpasses physical properties of UF resin boards, but our press time is longer and adhesive cost is an order of magnitude greater than UF adhesive
  • Modification and commercialization of powder coatings
    • Powder coatings are what they sound like
      • They contain little or no volatile organic
        compounds
      • They are eco friendly, but are relegated to commercial
        application processes
      • Most common places you will see a powder
        coating is on large appliances at home
      • They are also used expensively as barrier
        coatings and undercoats in the automotive industry
    • We have completed the first of 4 resins and
      it should be scaled up to 70,000 lbs by the end of April
    • The second only requires a duplication and it
      will be ready to move to the scale up process
    • Preliminary work on the final two has also
      been completed
  • Development of a novel fire retardant and insulating coating
    • All developmental work has been completed and
      outside testing is underway
    • Commercial production may begin in the near future
  • Advancements in materials and test methods for structural composites
    • Primarily investigating the state of the art
      at this point to determine the best direction for the research

And that is what I am doing ;)