On Thursday 25 November 2010, the University of Wollongong and BlueScope Steel officially opened the Wollongong node of the Centre of Excellence in Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology following an invitation from the Australian Research Council Centre to open the centre.
The Wollongong research team, which comprises Dr Phil Barker from BlueScope Steel Research and Dr Stephen Blanksby from the University of Wollongong's School of Chemistry, has been invited to join the prestigious Centre of Excellence following their work over the past seven years into the paint formulation used to make COLORBOND® steel.
The team has been developing a new understanding of the chemical processes which underpin the durability of the paints employed in the COLORBOND® steel range of products and how they continue to display high levels of performance in the Australian environment.
Working with a team of four students, they have developed new technologies based on state-of-the-art mass spectrometry (a technique for identifying molecules by their individual masses) to monitor chemical processes within the paint at a molecular level. "It is almost like we can see inside the paint and watch what the molecules are doing – it's a very exciting time!" said Dr Blanksby.
The Centre of Excellence in Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology was originally founded in 2005 by a collection of eminent Australian scientists interested in the chemistry of free radicals. Its funding has been recently renewed by the Australian Research Council who will provide almost $10m over the next four years to fund the centre's critical research into the role of free radicals in health and disease, surfaces and materials and even climate change mitigation.
Dr Barker said: "It's a great outcome for us at BlueScope Steel and a result of our strong collaboration over the years. We have already made great advances in the understanding of chemical factors important to the durability of our prepainted products and the work we do with Dr Blanksby is enabling us to design new, highly-specialised, anti-oxidant molecules to soak up harmful free-radicals which can form in the paint. The outcomes will help to make COLORBOND® steel products even more durable in the future".
"In real terms, it means significant extra funding to help our research, not only in our great collaboration with BlueScope Steel, but also our work on atmospheric free radical chemistry and even cataract research," Dr Blanksby added. "There's no doubt that the strength of the collaboration where we have applied fundamental chemistry to a very visible real-world application, in COLORBOND® steel, has attracted the attention of the other scientists within the centre and at least partially led to the invitation to join".
For further details please contact:
Bernie Goldie
Office of Public Affairs
University of Wollongong
Ph: 02 4221 5942
