INTELLIGENT OPTICAL SYSTEMS, INC. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: C56-14b

Description

Mussel infestation on hydropower plant surfaces exposed to continuous abrasion?such as trash racks and intake screen?causes significant downtime and requires expensive maintenance, including chemical injection that can cause significant collateral damage to surrounding ecosystems. Coating durability is critical, and although there are coatings that can initially resist mussel fouling, none of them are abrasion resistant and able to also retain mussel prevention ability over long-term immersion. Mussel fouling will worsen as zebra and quagga mussels spread more widely into the freshwater bodies of this continent. Statement of how this problem is being addressed. The proposed project will develop an extremely durable, abrasion-resistant coating that prevents this mussel attachment, solving a critical problem for the hydropower industry, and will also mitigate hard fouling in industries such as paper and pulp, fisheries, and seawater desalination. Slippery antibiofouling gels will be chemically anchored to ultrahard nanoporous tungsten oxide coatings to enable coatings that are both extremely durable and maintain antibiofouling properties over a very long time. What is to be done in Phase I? In the first phase of the project, ultrahard nanoporous tungsten oxide will be electrodeposited onto flat coupons of metals used in hydropower component manufacture. A slippery antibiofouling gel coating will be infiltrated and chemically anchored into these porous structures. Abrasion and biofouling resistance will be measured as a function of time of immersion over a period of two months in model fouling solutions in the laboratory. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits The primary commercial benefit will be to the hydropower plant operators, who can eliminate preventive chemical injection-based maintenance programs to control fouling of components exposed to water bodies. The reduced cost of maintaining unfouled components will reduce the cost of electricity to the ultimate consumers–the public. In addition, eliminating the chemicals that are required now will prevent the present collateral damage to the ecosystem and, remove challenges of permitting and operating these plants.