Good evening, everyone.
Start off with the
picture to the top left.
This is Aloha
Airlines flight 243.
This failed catastrophically
as a result of corrosion.
It led to the loss of
one life and 65 injuries.
I'm David Rodriguez.
I'm a PhD candidate in
the Material Science
and Engineering Department,
and my focus for research
is the techniques for the
characterization and mitigation
of corrosion.
Now, I don't mean to be an
alarmist with this picture.
This is a very rare
sight and that's
because the aerospace
industry has
a product that is very good
at preventing corrosion.
However, the product is
chromate conversion coatings,
and it contains
hexavalent chromium.
If you've seen Erin
Brockovich, you
know that this is a
carcinogenic material.
Now, saying
carcinogenic material
is kind of meaningless.
There's a lot of
carcinogenic materials.
But to put this in
perspective, OSHA
has assessed the risk
of various chemicals.
You can see here, you
have asbestos here,
and hexavalent chromium here.
Hexavalent chromium is,
by far, a greater risk
of causing cancer.
So asbestos has been banned
across all industries
and chromate conversion
coatings have
been banned across
almost all industries
except the aerospace industry.
Now, this is because it's very
good at preventing corrosion.
Now, what I've done
for my research
is replace chromium with
molybdenum, a more biologically
compatible element, and
this led to the formation
of this coating here.
So you could see that it can be
applied to bear aluminum alloy
and then form this coating.
So what makes chromate
conversion coating so important
is they have a
self-healing mechanism.
You can see here, there's the
lab proof on the far left,
and a schematic
to the far right.
In a, you have a fully intact
coating, and a fully intact
coating here.
And what this has is something
that has the highest corrosion
resistance.
Now, once that
coating is scratched
and the aluminum is exposed,
you have the lowest corrosion
resistance.
But it self-heals, similar to
the T-1000 in Terminator 2.
That was my second
90s movies reference,
and I swear it's my last.
I've been in school
too damn long.
So once I do finally
escape, we do
want to form a
company around this.
We've competed in the
Governors Cup, and won $15,000,
and we're a finalist in
the Flow Competition,
and advance to the
Tri-state competition.
And we have a
laboratory concept that
can improve the quality
of lives of others.
However, this is just as
unacceptable as having
a carcinogenic material
prevent corrosion.
Now, I'd be remiss
to say that I don't
have my own selfish
reasons for commercializing
this, not monetary
entirely, but it's legacy.
I'm thinking about that future
flight with my future children
where we get to
look out the window
at the wing of the
plane, and I get
to tell them the story about
how their father created
a green technology to
keep the skies blue.
[APPLAUSE]
