Multifunctional Coating for Crew Cabin Surfaces and Fabrics

NASA's crewed spacecrafts require routine cleaning of particulate, moisture, organic, and salt contaminants on the crew cabin surfaces and fabrics. Self-cleaning surfaces will help in reducing the crew's effort in cleaning the cabin and reduce the amount of wipes used for cleaning. It will also be beneficial if the surfaces can be made antimicrobial to reduce the health risks of the crew members. Surface treatments also should be durable for 3 to 5 years long missions. In the proposed Phase I effort, a novel multifunctional coating will be developed which has both superhydrophobic and antimicrobial properties. Antimicrobial treatment of cabin crew surfaces do not resist the accumulation of contaminants on the surfaces. In the proposed Phase I Materials Modification Inc. (MMI) will develop a multifunctional coating for providing antimicrobial and self-cleaning properties to the spacecraft crew cabin surfaces based on its superhydrophobic technology. The best coating formulation selected from the Phase I effort will be incorporated in a prototype spray cans for NASA applications.

In order to protect crewmembers from health risk during long-missions antimicrobial surface treatments are needed by NASA. Such surface treatments or coatings can also prevent biofouling of equipment's. The antimicrobial coatings proposed in this Phase I effort can be coated onto a variety of material surfaces found in Human Accommodations and Habitation Systems. The proposed multifunctional coatings can also be used on food storage and handling, crew hygiene, solid waste storage, and biological experimentation areas.

The proposed multifunctional coating can be used as protective coating against water, ice, corrosive chemicals, and abrasion. Typical end user markets include construction (pipes, facades, bridges), automotive (paint surface treatments, metal parts, metal structures, window, mirrors and lamps, plastic hoods), marine, electronics (components, screens and displays, plastic and metal parts), sanitary, oil and gas (pipes), energy (wind power structures and blades, glass surfaces on solar panels), consumer electronics (displays and plastic and metal parts) and food manufacturing.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.