Innovating rust prevention coating extracted from scrap tires

·        Establishing a company based on innovation run by a leading business graduates from King Fahd University.
·        US$ 13 billion is the cost of rust in the Kingdom.
·        Develop heat insulation bricks with low cost.
·        The used technology had a significant environmental impact as well as economic feasibility.

 KFUPM researchers invented high-quality economic coating resists rust in the pipes at low cost. KFUPM announced the establishment of a company based on this innovative technology under the name of "Telaa" run by an entrepreneur from the university graduates.
 Dr. Nasser Al-Aqeeli, Dean of Scientific Research was able to develop a way to extract a substance from the synthetic rubber in scrap tires and used it in manufacturing a highly effective coating in preventing corrosion in oil and gas pipelines. He, also, was also able to use the material to develop building brick with high thermal insulation properties better than the traditional insulation materials.
According to Dr. Aqeeli, the feature of innovative materials is that it is of high economic feasibility and it enables us to obtain a high-quality coating with one third of the price of conventional paints and half the value of heat insulation bricks. Moreover, it is environmentally friendly because the material extracted was burn and cause serious environmental emissions, which means that the technology had a significant environmental impact as well as economic feasibility.
The technical got three patents from the US Patent Office and exceeded the "Proof of Concept" stage and laboratory tests and a startup company was established based on this technology, headed by KFUPM graduate and is currently in the marketing phase.
Dr. Al-Aqeeli said "We have a great story of national innovation since the patent issued by a national university with the efforts of Saudi scientists. The technology was developed and reached more advanced stages in the level of technical readiness through the innovative system developed by the King Fahd University; leading to the establishment of "Telaa" company.
Feasibility studies demonstrated that this technology is a very economic valuable technique. The average value of the traditional liter paint is SR 30, while we can through this technology produce high-quality paint with only 9 riyals per liter.
"There is a very important environmental aspect in this innovation. The use of the scrap tires, which were dumped and burned, causing environmental badly damaged, by extracting the synthetic rubber, which evaporates when heated, and turned it into a high quality coating used in painting various pipe especially oil and gas pipelines.
He stressed that the new paint is more effective than traditional paint, while its cost is less than a third. We were able to convert a harmful substance has no value to a valuable and useful material.
In a different technique applied, Dr. Al-Aqeeli stated that the material extracted from the car tires is used as insulation in the walls of houses and we were able to develop insulating bricks better than volcanic bricks with half the price.
"We finished the "Proof of Concept" stage in the pipe coating technology and we are currently conducting field tests, reaching level 8 in the "Readiness of the Technology". Two steps remains to complete the session to send the paint to all world's markets.
Currently, we have a discussion with Saudi Aramco for the practical tests at the industrial level, and at the completion of the tests we will have the product adopted by Aramco which will enable us to market the product on a global level.
The research team studied the market paint in the world which exceeds $ 253 billion in just three years. If we were able to acquire a proportion of only half per cent of this market, we are talking of billions of dollars to the national income. It is proved through calculations that the company is able to restore its capital in 9 months only.
Regarding the local market, we find that the Kingdom, of more countries in the world, suffers from rust, especially in the oil and gas pipelines as well as the corrosion of the concrete, where rust cost us more than $ 13 billion a year, and we are one of the most nations consuming tires.
"To create this story, we committed, in the development of this technology, to be achieved exclusively by Saudis, from research to the company's establishment. The scholar who filed the patent and all assistants are Saudis. The entrepreneur who invests the technology is KFUPM graduate, and we keen that beneficiaries are from Saudi Arabia.  We noticed great interest in this technology from local companies". He added.
"For KFUPM innovations, in general, we are still working to overcome the marketing obstacle, stressing that the most important way to overcome this obstacle is the success stories and to provide concrete evidence for investors "
"We have no shortage of capacity; although the investment environment in innovations is not persuasive like developed countries, we still do take much longer."
This technique is one of many techniques that King Fahd University will submit to the local and international market as its contribution to the knowledge economy.
 "Our research is no longer driven just by scientific curiosity, but we are looking to the economical aspect. Time is not for patent, which remains locked in drawers because it lacks the technical solvency and awareness or not being applicable or with meager economic feasibility which is not attractive in the business world".
"In King Fahd University, we begin with the very important questions before starting the inventive project, studying the economic feasibility, technical solvency and environmental friendliness. Moreover, we addressed other questions related to our work and focused on the development of our needs."
Dr. Al-Aqeeli stressed on the role of the innovative system developed by KFUPM to improve scientific research and bringing it to the commercialization stage, and said, "My role as a researcher was to come up with an idea possess  economic aspect, but on implementation, we will need a complete innovative system, this system exists only in the King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, including suitable laboratories, qualified assistants, innovation Center, which filed my innovation and protect my intellectual property rights , modeling labs, an entrepreneur who has invested on the idea and turned it into a company. All these elements to bridge the gap and overcome what called in the research community "Valley of death", which reflects the gap between conduct research stage and the stage of commercialization".
He pointed out that the university shortened time and raised the level of confidence among its researchers through many initiatives such as research collaboration program with the most prestigious universities in the world and transfers a culture of research and innovation to it.
"We, also, noted acceleration in the field of technology; for example, catalytic refining technology took 20 years to reach its current state and became a real refinery producing tens of thousands of barrels a day, however, the " Qradint " company based on the same technology and  was established in the United States took only 3 years. This shows that we are in the right direction and learning how to shorten efforts. "