The 2010 Victoria Prize was awarded to Dr Voytek Gutowski

One problem faced by the car, furniture, and building product industries was the use of paints; with volatile solvents entering the atmosphere and millions of litres of solid waste going to landfill.

Dr. Gutowski and his team developed technology which eliminates waste and volatile solvent emissions from painting plastic surfaces.

His development of a new, eco-sustainable coating technology for plastics also allows the metal body parts of cars and building components to be replaced with lighter, less expensive plastic and composite parts. This has resulted in reducing the need for solvent based paints and is set to change the future of car, furniture and building manufacturing industries.

Powder coating relies on the powder having one electrical charge and the coated material having the other. Opposite charges attract, so the powder sticks. But plastics are not conductive.

Dr. Gutowski and his staff solved the problem by coating the plastic with a fine layer of special molecules that provides surface conductivity.

Voytek Gutowski said that on non-conductive material, it wouldn’t retain any more than about 30% of what is sprayed on the surface. With his new technology, about 100% of the paint powder coating is deposited on the material, completely eliminating any waste. Any overspray can be collected and recirculated, which eliminates any waste at all.

This new coating technology will allow many metal parts to be replaced with new, lighter, less expensive plastic parts.

Dr. Gutowski completed his studies in Mechanical Engineering and received a PhD in Materials Science from the Technical University of Szczecin, Poland. He arrived in Australia in 1981 and taught at Curtin University for two years. In mid-1983 he joined CSIRO. He is also a Principal Fellow and has been Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne since 2004.
[Source: Business Victoria]