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 Trent Undergraduate Student and his Professor Establish PatentFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tom Singleton and Dr. Andrew Vreugdenhil recognized for developing environmentally-friendly anti-corrosive coating for metals Wednesday, December 18, 2013, Peterborough The development of an innovative environmentally-friendly anti-corrosive coating for metals has earned Trent’s Dr. Andrew Vreugdenhil and his former undergraduate student Tom Singleton a new US patent. Professor Vreugdenhil and Mr. Singleton’s new coating technique, which uses a sol-gel process to lay down a silica based coating on metals, is an ideal replacement for chromate-based coating technology which is used in the automotive, aerospace and ship-building industries. Chromates are known carcinogens. “A patent is recognition of a completely novel invention so on that level it is nice to be recognized as having created something entirely new,” says Prof. Vreugdenhil, who teaches in Trent’s Chemistry Department and Materials Science graduate program. “The coatings and materials research that goes on in my lab typically has a very applications-oriented slant and so it is exciting to think about the possibility of seeing this material being taken up and used in industry. This patent is an important step in making that possible.” This is the second US patent that Prof. Vreugdenhil has held and a first for his former undergraduate student Tom Singleton, who graduated with an Honours B.Sc. in Chemistry from Trent in 2009. Speaking of Mr. Singleton and his work on the patent, Prof. Vreugdenhil says: “Considering the length of time it takes to secure a patent and the sort of in-depth research that has to be carried out in order to make a patent possible it is rare for an undergraduate researcher to be a co-inventor on a patent. However, there are a couple of different things that made that possible. First of all Tom was an outstanding student who started out by volunteering in my laboratory at the beginning of his second year. Secondly, this opportunity was made possible by the significant research opportunities that exist for students at Trent. Tom was an important part of my laboratory team throughout most of his undergraduate career and when he left he had developed some very impressive research skills.” With Prof. Vreugdenhil and Mr. Singleton named as co-inventors, the patent has been assigned to Trent University which paid for the costs of patenting and proof and principle development with funding from the Ontario Centres of Excellence. Trent has also partnered with the Greater Peterborough Innovation Cluster in the commercialization of this new technology. “The Innovation Cluster has been involved at several key points in the development of this technology and in particular when we were starting to look around to see what next steps needed to be taken to begin the process of possibly commercializing the technology,” explains Prof. Vreugdenhil. “We had seen some very impressive performance from this material but we had pretty much finished with it in the laboratory and the Cluster with the Research Office helped us acquire the funding and the expertise to move the technology towards commercialization.” - 30 - For more information, please contact: |
