Thursday, October 12, 2023 

7pm EDT 

in person at the Carleton Dominion Chalmers Centre, 355 Cooper Street, Ottawa ON K2P 0G8 and via Zoom (please contact Gail Larose at glarose0@gmail.com for the Zoom link)

Stuart G. Croll

Professor Emeritus, Department of Coatings and Polymeric Materials, North Dakota State University

Watching paint dry: the fascinating world of polymer physics

Polymer physics studies the molecular motion of polymers and end-use properties as well as the degradation of those properties during their service lifetime. Organic polymers can be made from petrochemicals and renewable resources and are widely used because they are cost efficient. They are tailored to be useful in a wide variety of modern technological applications as plastics, paint, adhesives etc. and, from renewable resources, have been used by artisans and artists for many centuries, even before their structure and chemistry was understood. 

Art ages; sometimes badly. Even ‘modern’ art can be old enough to have deteriorated visibly. Galleries and museums, art conservators and art historians have questions about materials that were originally used by the artists, how they might have changed over the years and how to preserve the art. Understanding the materials and their deterioration now includes 21^st century scientific techniques, sometimes particle accelerators, to provide information and thus answer those questions.

Once upon a time, Stuart Croll gained a degree in physics from the University of London (UK), then completed a doctorate in polymer physics at the University of Leeds (UK). He first worked in England, then moved to Canada before moving to the USA. He spent periods in the construction chemicals, telecommunications and pigment industries but mostly in coatings at Sherwin-Williams where he worked on a wide range of R&D and troubleshooting  projects.

After spending over 20 years in industry, usually halfway up the hierarchy, Dr. Croll joined the faculty at North Dakota State University in 2000, and was Chair of the department from 2006 to 2012. He retired in 2019 and moved to British Columbia, but maintains old contacts and an interest in some projects.

Dr. Croll is a member of the American Physical Society, the Pacific Northwest Society for Coatings Technology, the American Coatings Association and the Institute of Physics (UK). He is a member of the editorial review board of ‘Progress in Organic Coatings’ and the ‘Journal of Coatings Technology, Research’ and is on the organizing committee of the Coatings Science International Conference, https://coatings-science.com/.  Dr. Croll has published articles about coatings, polymers, mechanics and corrosion and has been an instructor in a variety of short courses.