Love and “ilities”: The main ingredients in successful coatings

Materials science is vital for developing coatings to preserve metals in heritage machinery and industrial sites. Science on its own, however, is not enough to develop quality coating. The concept of “ilities” provides a way to identify the social and practical needs of the communities who value and support these large, often remote heritage artifacts, and for whom “quality” includes characteristics such as useability, accessibility, adaptability, and engageability. It is the integration of these qualities with scientific evidence of how materials perform relative to context that can underpin the development of coatings that will promote the practices of care, attention, and tending that will enable a coating to provide successful long-term protection.