Materials Science and Engineering
Professor Earns Second R&D 100 Award

For the fourth time in three years, the department of materials science and engineering at UC has claimed an R&D 100 Award for innovation.

The awards from R&D magazine in suburban Chicago are considered "the Oscars of invention," and they typically go to corporate researchers with products out on the market. Wim Van Ooij, professor of materials science, just claimed his second award in a row for a product known as GalvGard which helps to protect steel and other metals.

"We are very pleased with this. There's been almost no academic work on galvanizing. It's a very interesting topic."

Galvanizing is truly an old technology. German scientists discovered back in 1742 that dipping steel in molten zinc protected the steel from corrosion. "There's really been very little advancement in all that time," said Van Ooij.

Unfortunately, the chemicals required in the galvanizing process are quite toxic and generate poisonous gases and corrosive vapors. Zinc ammonium chloride is used as a "flux" material, coating the steel and protecting it during the galvanizing process. That chemical gets altered during galvanizing, releasing smoky vapors and hydrochloric acid.

To avoid those problems, Van Ooij developed "GalvGard," a nontoxic flux which uses copper ions to coat the steel instead. Galvard also works longer than the traditional flux materials. "It definitely has a longer shelf life," said Van Ooij. "Instead of working for an hour, it offers protection for a full week."

Van Ooij's process also produces less "dross," an insoluble clump of particles that sink into the hot galvanizing dip. Finally, the process saves considerable energy, because the steel can be preheated. The hot zinc dip must stay around 850 degrees Fahrenheit (455 Celsius), and cold steel would "steal the heat" in the same way that drafty windows allow heat to escape from a house. The GalvGard treatment itself, works at room temperature, compared with the zinc ammonium chloride flux which requires a temperature of about 140 degrees F.

Graduate student Prasanna Vijayan worked with Van Ooij on the development and testing of GalvGard. There are two patent applications in the process, and corporate support from Europe, North America, and Australia. Weert Galvanizing in The Netherlands, for example, is moving from a pilot scale trial to a line trial. That's the final step before full-scale commercial use. "There is heavy pressure in Europe to make galvanized coatings with less corrosion. That was the driving force in this work," said Van Ooij. In this country, a Madison, Indiana firm is marketing the technology, and Van Ooij has begun collaborating with Zaclon, a large flux-manufacturing firm in Cleveland.

Van Ooij and Vijayan are also looking at aluminum-based coatings to replace the zinc alloys, which can be an environmental hazard when it leaches into the soil. The best known example, according to van Ooij, is aging guardrails which release zinc as they corrode over time.

But it was the new flux which makes the additional research possible. "No one could make a new alloy without our new flux," summed up van Ooij who's already thinking about going for a triple play at the R&D 100 Awards. "I have an idea to submit next year already."