Category Archives: Notes From the Lab

Notes From The Lab: The Agonies of Defeat – High Temp Coatings

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Guest Post by Tony Collins

Working with our scientists is the most fun thing I get to do. Nearly every day someone comes to me with a big grin because they know they’ve uncovered something significant, something that can help us continue to move into uncharted territory in the coating world. I guess that is how it is with new technologies – the advances continue rolling in faster and faster because so much is still unknown.

But there are heartbreaks too. This is about one of them.

Focusing on a High Temp Formulation

While some of our scientists were working on corrosion protection, others were collaborating in an effort to create the best high temp formulation of EonCoat. A lot of effort went in to refining the matrix to make sure the appearance of the ceramic stayed the same in the high temp formulation as it does in the standard form of EonCoat up to temperatures in the thousands of degrees. Once high temperature performance was solved, many man-hours went into stabilizing the product for shelf life. The coating looked great and we were extremely proud.

Taking a Step Back

What none of us considered was what effect temperature would have on corrosion protection. After all, the coating looked great. But what we finally came to understand is that the ceramic layer is simply abrasion resistant protection for the real corrosion layer which lies next to, and is really part of, the steel.   EonCoat Lead Scientist Sameer Patel Testing EonCoat HT To our dismay we learned that the corrosion protection of the high temp coating, after it had been heated, was only just as good as other corrosion coatings on the market. Ultimately we understood that the real corrosion layer is a hydrate and once you heat the substrate above 212°F – the hydrate is gone.

Accepting Failure to Move Forward

We have many failures, but this one truly hurt. I had envisioned coating steam lines in power plants across the globe and no longer having CUI (corrosion under insulation) as an issue.

To be fair, the coating could still be used this way because it does offer some protection and the ceramic is still in good shape at high temps. Where the issue lies is that the corrosion protection of the High Temp variation is nowhere near what we’ve come to expect from EonCoat. We want high temperature protection that is revolutionary.

So our efforts at high temp corrosion protection, and EonCoat HT, go into the loss column. I cannot tell you how difficult it was to write this.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10000 ways that won’t work” – Thomas Edison

 

Notes From The Lab: Sharecropper’s Daughter Solves 3000-Year-Old Problem

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Guest Post by Tony Collins

Since the beginning of the Iron Age man has dealt with corrosion in some shape, form or fashion. It is estimated that corrosion costs mankind about 4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or about $3 trillion dollars per year. It seems a solution to this problem has come out of the EonCoat lab, and like many of the world’s greatest discoveries – it wasn’t something we were looking for.

How it Happened

We put Ceramicrete on a metal plate as part of an experiment. The cement didn’t bond, fell off and we threw the plate in the scrap bin. That would have been the end of the story, except several months later my wife, Sandy, and I drove in the back gate at our facility and she asked – “what is the story with that piece of metal in the scrap bin?”

Now Sandy is the most observant person I know. Sometimes it is a little frustrating  because she has to notice everything around her, from how much farmer Hocutt’s tobacco has grown this week to what someone really meant by a comment at dinner. After 15 years I’ve learned to pay attention however, because she sees things I do not.

“What piece of metal in the scrap bin are you talking about?” I asked.

There is one piece of metal in that bin that isn’t rusted while all the rest of it is,” she replied.

That seemingly insignificant comment got us to looking and suddenly evidence was all around us. Everything that had been touched by Ceramicrete from the cement mixer to places it had been spilled had no rust. We had 6 PHD’s in our lab with both chemistry and physics backgrounds, some of them being world-renowned.

None of them had noticed.

Argonne National labs had this technology since 1993. None of the brilliant people there noticed.

But a sharecropper’s daughter with no formal education saw something others could not. Just one of the many reasons I love her.

*****

In the coming Notes From the Lab series I’ll share more of the amazing discoveries that come out of our labs. Some of it earth shattering, some of it heartbreaking, but all of it fascinating. I hope you enjoy the trip as much as I do.

 

 

Introducing Tony Collins’ Notes From The Lab

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One of the more interesting aspects of EonCoat CEO Tony Collins’ job is that he gets to keep up with EonCoat scientists and their experiments down in the lab on a day-to-day basis.  Many “ah-ha” moments come out of the lab, some breakthroughs and some failures, and Tony will be documenting some of these experiments and findings in a new blog post series, Notes from the Lab.

Tony will pull back the curtains to share, inform and reflect what was learned in an effort to showcase the trials, tribulations and jubilation of a start up company.  This new blog series will be your window into EonCoat’s labs and into what our scientists are working on.

Who is Tony Collins?

Tony Collins is a life-long entrepreneur with a successful history in the power generation business. He served as founder and president of TGM (Turbine Generator Maintenance) for more than 20 years prior to selling the company in 2007.

In 2007, Tony purchased the commercial rights to Ceramicrete, an acid/base cementitious formula developed at Argonne National Laboratories, and spent four additional years of research and testing prior to officially releasing EonCoat in 2011.

You can read more about Tony by visiting his LinkedIn Page.

Stay Tuned! Thanks for reading and we look forward to sharing Tony’s Notes from the Lab soon!