More coppercoat

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nimbusgb

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A long way from my boat! :(
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First off let me say that if I had just over a grand to blow I would coppercoat immediately. I’d buy the materials from the company without hesitation or reserve. My boat currently drysails, spending most of the year sitting in the sun in Greece but that is about to change. Coppercoat has got to be just about the ultimate for this type of application. Traditional anti-fouls just won’t survive this type of treatment.

That having been said I am trialling my own ‘home mix’ copper coating, follwing the lead of mollyhawk and their own 'home mix' experiences. http://www.yachtmollymawk.com/2009/11/coppercoat/
I'm not trying to do 'Coppercoat' out of any business, I just object to paying £50 for a litre of resin!

Copper – I initially sourced two types of copper ‘powder’ after much research. Both are very high purity ‘pure copper’ > 99.5% pure. One was Copper powder – Dendritic – Irregular Spherical. The other is Copper powered – Coarse grade fine. The spherical powder is somewhat similar to microballoons or glass spheres used as a filler material. The initial packet I got is still bright copper coloured 6 months after I bought it, clearly not degrading at all, even in my garage. The other is talcum like, dull flat coloured copper. Subsequent comparison with ‘genuine’ coppercoat copper have proved it to be to all intents and purposes the same stuff. ( I subsequently supplied a sample of each to a metallurgist and he agreed ) the company that supplied the material was I think Ronald Britton http://www.colorlord.com/ronaldbritton. iirc I was quoted £220 for 25kg. ( I’ll need about 20 kg for the bottom of Cariad using 10l resin and 2kg / l copper) I spoke to two companies that could supply in the UK so supply appears to not be a problem.

On to the epoxy. I had a lot of dealing with a most engaging and interesting young lady who is the chief industrial chemist at a company producing epoxy products in Uckfield, East Sussex ( I won’t mention the name otherwise she may be flooded with more pleas for help :) ) She was very helpful about explaining the nature of epoxy resins, examining a sample of genuine coppercoat resin and supplying a few sample batches at no charge.

The final conclusion was that there was not much in it and that any suitable matrix for the suspension of the copper would do with allowances made for the continuous immersion in seawater. The critical thing appeared to be the initial exposure of raw copper to the atmosphere / water.

So as I type I have a test panel immersed off a finger jetty in Brighton marina. On one side there is a coating of ‘genuine’ coppercoat resin and my sourced copper powder. On the other my copper powder and stock standard west epoxy. The coppercoat side did not need ( nor would it support ) much abrading, its adhesion was low but I gently exposed some copper. The west side was plainly more tough and needed a light sanding to expose copper. ( I must get a loupe or microsope to examine it a bit further ) I exposed copper diagonally across only 1/2 of the panel to see if copper was exposed straight after application.

The panel has been in a week. Let's see what happens! One interesting observation is that the section of West/copper has taken on a green hue where it is not in the water whereas all the rest of the panel on both sides, above and below the water remains dull copper colour at the moment.

Just a note here, I am frequently blown away by some of the small but highly technical industries buried away in the Sussex countryside. Here's a company making epoxies, from scratch. Up the road there's a stainless fabrication place that produces simply stunning work. There is a carpenter and joinery shop on a farm nearby that turns out some beautiful work. Another small workshop produces glassfibre and carbon fibre tubes and a young couple in a small workshop that have a water profile cutting machine that he uses to make an income and she uses to produce art pieces.
 
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Interesting exercise with the copper coat. I have the commercial stuff on my boat but in good circumstances - moored in freshwater, sailing in salt. So I dont get any worthwhile fouling. However I see no reason to think that it would be any better than commercial antifoul, just veasier to live with.

Keep us posted with your experiments
 
nimbusgb said:
First off let me say that if I had just over a grand to blow I would coppercoat immediately. I’d buy the materials from the company without hesitation or reserve. My boat currently drysails, spending most of the year sitting in the sun in Greece but that is about to change. Coppercoat has got to be just about the ultimate for this type of application. Traditional anti-fouls just won’t survive this type of treatment.

That having been said I am trialling my own ‘home mix’ copper coating, follwing the lead of mollyhawk and their own 'home mix' experiences. http://www.yachtmollymawk.com/2009/11/coppercoat/
I'm not trying to do 'Coppercoat' out of any business, I just object to paying £50 for a litre of resin!

Copper – I initially sourced two types of copper ‘powder’ after much research. Both are very high purity ‘pure copper’ > 99.5% pure. One was Copper powder – Dendritic – Irregular Spherical. The other is Copper powered – Coarse grade fine. The spherical powder is somewhat similar to microballoons or glass spheres used as a filler material. The initial packet I got is still bright copper coloured 6 months after I bought it, clearly not degrading at all, even in my garage. The other is talcum like, dull flat coloured copper. Subsequent comparison with ‘genuine’ coppercoat copper have proved it to be to all intents and purposes the same stuff. ( I subsequently supplied a sample of each to a metallurgist and he agreed ) the company that supplied the material was I think Ronald Britton http://www.colorlord.com/ronaldbritton. iirc I was quoted £220 for 25kg. ( I’ll need about 20 kg for the bottom of Cariad using 10l resin and 2kg / l copper) I spoke to two companies that could supply in the UK so supply appears to not be a problem.

On to the epoxy. I had a lot of dealing with a most engaging and interesting young lady who is the chief industrial chemist at a company producing epoxy products in Uckfield, East Sussex ( I won’t mention the name otherwise she may be flooded with more pleas for help :) ) She was very helpful about explaining the nature of epoxy resins, examining a sample of genuine coppercoat resin and supplying a few sample batches at no charge.

The final conclusion was that there was not much in it and that any suitable matrix for the suspension of the copper would do with allowances made for the continuous immersion in seawater. The critical thing appeared to be the initial exposure of raw copper to the atmosphere / water.

So as I type I have a test panel immersed off a finger jetty in Brighton marina. On one side there is a coating of ‘genuine’ coppercoat resin and my sourced copper powder. On the other my copper powder and stock standard west epoxy. The coppercoat side did not need ( nor would it support ) much abrading, its adhesion was low but I gently exposed some copper. The west side was plainly more tough and needed a light sanding to expose copper. ( I must get a loupe or microsope to examine it a bit further ) I exposed copper diagonally across only 1/2 of the panel to see if copper was exposed straight after application.

The panel has been in a week. Let's see what happens! One interesting observation is that the section of West/copper has taken on a green hue where it is not in the water whereas all the rest of the panel on both sides, above and below the water remains dull copper colour at the moment.

Just a note here, I am frequently blown away by some of the small but highly technical industries buried away in the Sussex countryside. Here's a company making epoxies, from scratch. Up the road there's a stainless fabrication place that produces simply stunning work. There is a carpenter and joinery shop on a farm nearby that turns out some beautiful work. Another small workshop produces glassfibre and carbon fibre tubes and a young couple in a small workshop that have a water profile cutting machine that he uses to make an income and she uses to produce art pieces.
Click to expand...

Good-day, interested in your final results. We have copper coat on. It was copper coloured out of the water and once in the water it turned GREEN and has remained green over the last two years. Here in the Med it does what it says it should do.

Good luck

Peter
 
rivonia said:
We have copper coat on. It was copper coloured out of the water and once in the water it turned GREEN and has remained green over the last two years.
Click to expand...

According to Coppercoat's website:
"On immersion sea water attacks the exposed pure copper powder, causing the formation of cuprous oxide. This highly effective antifouling agent deters growth until the surface degrades further to become cupric hydrochloride. This final copper form is highly unstable, and is washed away by the movement of the yacht, thereby removing any accumulating silt or slime. This automatically reveals a fresh copper rich surface, whereby the process recommences."

Yet according to Wiki, cuprous oxide is red, sometimes yellow. So what's the green? (Evidently cuprous chloride (CuCl or Cu2Cl2) is green; cupric chloride, yellowish to brown; couldn't find any references to cupric hydrochloride.)

I've noticed that Coppercoat usually becomes a dull, dirty green, but occasionally have seen it much brighter and paler, almost an emerald green.

Any chemists out there?

Interesting experiment, nimbus. I'm already Coppercoated but would be interested to hear how it pans out.
 
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macd said:
I've noticed that Coppercoat usually becomes a dull, dirty green, but occasionally have seen it much brighter and paler, almost an emerald green.
Click to expand...

Six months after application

2cp3l03.jpg
 
Chemist needed?

Anybody called a chemist?
I have been doing some experiments over the past years on my UFO34 "Dr NO"
I try to upload a picture, wonder if it works.
As it happened, I could lay my hands on a metallic powder consisting of copper and zinc. This is used in the inks industry as gold colour and is slightly cheaper than pure copper. The only difficulty is to get it in the epoxy in sufficient quantities: you need between 80 and 85% based on dry residue.
Once I got this right, the formula worked well as you can see (I hope) on the picture: just a layer of slime which was easily pressure-washed away by my son; after 12 months in saltwater.
If I were to bring this on the market I would call it "Goldfinger"!
Let me know if you need any other tips and tricks.
If the picture doesn't upload I will try again.
Erik
 
Very interesting Nimbus, I'm thinking that the West epoxy may be a bit hard and therefore may need more abrading on a yearly basis to expose new copper. Hopefully your friendly epoxy specialist has been able to suggest a slightly softer alternative. I think the Epoxy used by AMC (coppercoat) is water based as you can wash rollers, etc in water.
 
3 month update

3 months hung off a pontoon in Brighton Marina.

Panel with the plainly wooden section is genuine Coppercoat.

panel without ( right ) is west epoxy and copper powder.

Both have a permanently submerged section ( lower half ) and both have a section only wetted by ripples and wavelets.

In the occasionally wetted area both have lots of crud on the surface but it is equally easily removeable from both sections. A quick pass with a cloth or scotch pad would have that clean in an instant.

The panel is hung on the West side of a pontoon. but to the east of one of the access ramps so probably no direct sunlight for more than a few minutes a day.
 
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Interesting. Clearly something different is happening under water. But the copper coat on my boat looks more like the West on your samples.

Any difference in the under water fouling?
 
I coppercoated my boat last year. I looked at the costs of conventional antifoul over a 10 years period plus the costs of craneage etc, plus cleaning cost and time and effort, and came to the conclusion that using a tried and tested product was the way to go. Whilst I was offered alternative products, I was not happy to apply untried epoxy which may have to be stripped off it is does not work
 
Bosun Higgs said:
Interesting. Clearly something different is happening under water. But the copper coat on my boat looks more like the West on your samples.

Any difference in the under water fouling?
Click to expand...

No difference really. Both panels had a very light green slime, more of a sheen than a coating. the photos are exactly as the panel came out of the water. It was very loose and a single pass with a finger cleaned it off both panels. No weed growth and no other marine life.

I would say that going sailing would wash it off.
 
macd said:
According to Coppercoat's website:
"On immersion sea water attacks the exposed pure copper powder, causing the formation of cuprous oxide. This highly effective antifouling agent deters growth until the surface degrades further to become cupric hydrochloride. This final copper form is highly unstable, and is washed away by the movement of the yacht, thereby removing any accumulating silt or slime. This automatically reveals a fresh copper rich surface, whereby the process recommences."

Yet according to Wiki, cuprous oxide is red, sometimes yellow. So what's the green? (Evidently cuprous chloride (CuCl or Cu2Cl2) is green; cupric chloride, yellowish to brown; couldn't find any references to cupric hydrochloride.)

I've noticed that Coppercoat usually becomes a dull, dirty green, but occasionally have seen it much brighter and paler, almost an emerald green.

Any chemists out there?

...
Click to expand...

Reading this resuscitated thread, with which I was not previously familiar, has prompted me to try to address your puzzlement.

Cuprite, the mineral form of cuprous oxide, is indeed red. I am not certain what compound is described by the term ‘cupric hydrochloride’; only a few chemical sites refer to it, but one of them gives the formula ClCuH+2 which surprises me as a positive charge would not apply to a solid compound, but to an ion. It’s odd: perhaps it refers to cupric chloride (CuCl2 (s)), which is green. (BTW, I use (s) to indicate a solid – not absolutely necessary here, but a widespread convention in aquatic chemistry to distinguish solid phases from dissolved complexes having the same formula.)

But as the name and formula are not chemically clear, I won’t pursue that further - especially as several other copper corrosion products are, I think, more likely to be ultimately stable under seawater conditions, and are also green. These are:

A basic copper carbonate: Cu2CO3(OH)2 (s), Malachite in mineral form, which is the typical patina on bronze statuary exposed to weathering (aka verdigris, although that is also applied to a copper acetate).

A basic copper chloride: Cu2Cl(OH)3 (s), Paratacamite in mineral form (also Atacamite, Botallackite and Clinoatacamite).

I have not done a detailed literature search, and many relevant papers would be behind paywalls, but an abstract here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010938X04001350 of the paper by L. Núñez et alia, ‘Corrosion of copper in seawater and its aerosols in a tropical island’, Corrosion Science, 47(2), 461-484) reports that Paratacamite was found to be the main copper patina ‘... formed under complete immersion, on the line of water and in the splash zone’.

So, my suspicion is that the green colour is a basic cupric chloride, although a basic copper carbonate (Malachite) might be another possibility (the phase diagram in Figure 4 here http://cool.conservation-us.org/jaic/articles/jaic31-03-007_2.html shows the Paratacamite/Malachite boundary occurs at around the typical pH of seawater).

I am sorry that this is rather a late response, but hope you and others may find it interesting and/or helpful nonetheless.
 
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