Tuesday, November 6, 2007 - 9:00 AM
154b

Environmentally Friendly Polymeric Materials For Military Applications

John J. La Scala, Army Research Laboratory, AMSRD-ARL-WM-MC, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005

The Army has been moving towards the use of environmentally friendly materials for the past decade or so and is continuing to do so today. The Army determines and addresses environmental needs through the Army Environmental Requirements and Technology Assessments (AERTA). Due to recently enacted and proposed National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), the Army has determined that the areas of coatings, adhesives, and composites are a high priority environmental need. As a result, the Army has been reformulating and evaluating new coatings, adhesives, and composite resin formulations to reduce volatile organic compounds (VOC) and hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions. Through the use of exempt solvents and new water-borne technologies, we have been able to formulate HAP-free and low VOC coatings formulations. Commercially available HAP-free adhesives are being evaluated to replace current HAP-containing adhesives in the military, including materials conforming to MMM-A-121 (rubber to metal bonding) and A-A-1936 (rubber cement). Successful HAP-free formulations will be demonstrated at Army depots for performance and effectiveness starting in 2008. The development of fatty acid monomers has allowed for the reduction of styrene HAP content in composite resins from ~45 wt% to 20-25 wt%. These resins are currently being demonstrated/validated for DoD use in composite replacement parts for Army tactical vehicles, including HMMWV hoods, Marines HMMWV helmet hardtop, an Air Force T-38 dorsal cover, and an MCM composite rudder for the Navy. Lastly, composite repair resins used for automotive and other repair applications, such as Bondo™, have been reformulated using fatty acid monomers to contain no HAP, while having similar performance relative to current materials.