The 1st webinar of Coatings Series - Advanced Coatings for Buildings, held on September 30, 2020 and chaired by Prof. Dr. Anibal C. Maury-Ramirez, Prof. Dr. Inês Flores-Colen and Prof. Dr. Hideyuki Kanematsu was a success. Advanced coatings are an excellent opportunity to increase buildings durability, and even generate on surfaces novel functions such as air-purifying and antimicrobial properties which are required for sustainable development of our planet, and all those topics were discussed on this webinar.

After an introduction given by Prof. Dr. Anibal C. Maury-Ramirez, Prof. Dr. Inês Flores-Colen continued the session with her presentation on “Importance/Challenges of Protective Treatments”. Then, Dr. Giovanni Borsoi spoke about “Effect of Hygrothermal Aging on Hydrophobic Treatments Applied to Building Exterior Claddings”. Prof. Dr. Hideyuki Kanematsu ended the session with two consecutive talks dedicated to "Antifouling Coatings" and "Ultra-Low Biofouling Materials and Coatings".

Details of experts: Dr. Maury Ramírez is the current Dean of the Engineering Faculty of Universidad El Bosque (Bogotá, Colombia). He is Civil Engineer from Universidad del Norte (Barranquilla, Colombia), where he worked his thesis on the “Development of a neural-fuzzy model to estimate the in-let flows to waste treatment plants”. Thanks to his academic performance, he received from the European Union, the ALFA Scholarship on Materials Science. This time, working at Tampere University (Tampere, Finland), he researched on “TiO2 impregnation of concrete and plaster surfaces”. Based on the obtained results, he developed his doctorate on “Cementitious materials with air-purifying and self-cleaning properties using titanium dioxide photocatalysis” at Ghent University (Ghent, Belgium). Afterwards, with the aim of developing urban infrastructure with air-purifying and self-cleaning properties, he developed a postdoctorate at the Hong Kong Polytechnique University (Hong Kong, China). Today, Dr. Maury Ramírez is an associate researcher (Colciencias), author from more than 15 high impact articles, 50 articles in proceedings of international conferences and several books. Also, he has been acknowledged as Editorial Board Member and Guest Editor of Coatings (MDPI, Switzerland), Member of the American Concrete Institute, Senior Member of the International Union of Laboratories and Experts in Construction Materials, Systems and Structures (RILEM), and Member of the Hong Kong Concrete Institute. His main scientific contributions lies on the development of sustainable building materials, particularly on green walls and roofs, photocatalytic materials, nanomaterials, and sustainable concrete (i.e. supplementary cementititious materials, recycled aggregates, permeable concrete). Also, he has been involved in the design of sustainable buildings and communities. He was Professor from Universidad del Atlántico (Barranquilla, Colombia), Director of Posgraduate Studies on Civil Engineering at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali (Cali, Colombia) and Dean of the Engineering Faculty at Universidad de La Salle (Bogotá, Colombia).

Dr. Inês Flores-Colen is an Associate Professor at Construction Section, Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Georesources, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon and a research member at research unit CERIS (also vice-president since January 2019). She is a civil engineer (1996), with MSc (2002) and PhD in Civil Engineering (2009). She published in the field of construction, civil engineering and coatings: 2 books; 7 book chapters (3 national and 4 international); over 50 papers in international journals; 60 reports (technical-scientific dissemination and institutional consultancy); and 35 international congress papers. Her supervision activities include 2 Post-doc researchers (1 finished); 9 PhD students (1 finished); and 80 Masters students. She is the referee of 20 international journals. She participates (ed) in 8 competitively-financed research programs (1 international ongoing - CCS-CCU - PPI/APM/2019/1/00042/U/00001), two of which as Principal Investigator (1 national ongoing - WGB_Shield PTDC/ECI-EGC/30681/2017; Nanorender - PTDC/ECM/118262/2010) and one was the responsible of the subcontracted IST team in a P2020 project (PEP -POCI-01-0247-FEDER-017417). She is a member of CIB W70 and W86 commissions (in this commission she is the secretary since June 2019). Her Scopus h-index is 17. Her research interests are coatings; innovative and sustainable solutions; performance; durability; pathology and in-situ testing; maintenance and rehabilitation; thermal retrofitting (mortars and ETICS); and aerogel-based renders. She is the first author of a national patent PT (108864B) published on July 2019 related to the development of an aerogel-based thermal render.

Dr. Hideyuki Kanematsu is a professor of materials science and engineering at the National Institute of Technology at Suzuka College in Japan. Hide’s areas of interest include biofilm engineering, surface engineering, corrosion and STEM Education (Active learning by e-learning). He holds a B.Eng. (1981), a M.Eng (1983) and a Ph.D in Materials Science and Engineering (1989) all from Nagoya University. He is active members, board members, editorial members of ASM International, National Association for Surface Fishing, the USA (NASF), the Institute of Metal Finishing, UK (IMF) as well as the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, USA(TMS), American Chemical Society (ACS), Electrochemical Society (ECS), the Japan Institute of Metals (JIM) and the Iron & Steel Institute of Japan (ISIJ) etc.

Researcher at CERIS - Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon, Portugal since April 2019. Degree in Chemistry at Cá Foscari University (Italy, 2009) and Ph.D. at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands, 2017). Collaboration with the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC, Lisbon) for over a decade. Giovanni Borsoi has carried out an extensive research on the characterization and conservation of modern and historical building materials as well as on the development and analysis of compatible, effective, and durable products and coatings for the built environment. He participates as a Research Fellow in FCT-founded research project - “WGB_Shield - Shielding building facades for cities revitalization”.