Interview with Terence Lee

In our Smart Surface Solutions department, we have colleagues from different disciplinary backgrounds as well as different work experiences. This allows for effective cross-pollination of creative ideas. Furthermore, our department works on the development of different functional coatings. The mechanistic understanding that we derive from these different research topics allow us to apply them as platform solutions for product development purposes.

Our Smart Surface Solutions department works on both short-term and long-term development projects with both customers and institutes of higher learning. In these different partnerships, the Applied Technology teams play a major role. The synergistic interactions between the AT team and the Smart Surface Solutions department helps us to identify technology gaps in our current product portfolio, as well as the commercial potential when it comes to exploration of new technologies. With better knowledge of customer needs, our Smart Surface Solutions department will then be able to come up with innovative solutions that add performance benefits and are also cost-effective and easily integrated into the current application systems.

I am currently working on a project which improves the dirt pick-up resistance of architectural coatings. This involves the use of core-shell particle technology as an additive in water-based emulsion paints. The low surface energy of the shell enables the particles to stratify to the surface of the coating. The presence of these core-shell particles endows the surface with hydrophobicity which improves the dirt pick-up resistance of these coatings. In addition, we also realize the the combination of these core-shell particles with other pigments can boost the total solar reflectance of the coating.