Speaker
Description
The versatile adjustability of the sol-gel chemistry is a great technological advantage over other coating systems, especially due to the usability of organic and inorganic precursors as well as the variation of the reaction control and drying, curing, compaction. Alongside the many promising possibilities for producing functional coatings using the sol-gel process, challenges remain by (1) the temporal stability of sol-gel systems, (2) sensitivity of sol-gel systems to slight fluctuations in the ambient conditions during production but also processing, (3) crack formation caused by shrinkage during drying and curing, and (4) widely required curing temperatures of up to 180 °C for several minutes to hours. The last two disadvantages can be solved by very quick plasma curing instead of UV or heat-based, long-lasting processes. It combines both high and short UV and temperature impacts on the sol-gel coating. INOCON Technologie GmbH has developed a hot gas atmospheric pressure plasma source for precisely this purpose and has had it patented.
In the current work, special attention is given to the atomic binding and cross-linking processes initiated by the plasma and the influences on that. FTIR analyses are a basis for the evaluation providing information about the intensity and position of the peaks and the extent to which the curing process has already progressed. The hardness of the layer is an indicator of the degree of cross-linking. The harder the system, the better the atomic structures are linked together. But it must be taken into account that curing takes place across a gradient. So the layer is not cured evenly.
Alongside the experiment and optical spectroscopy, gas flow simulations are used to include information on the processes within the plasma, initiated by gases, flow rates, plasma jet power, and ad-mixed precursors.
| Speaker Country | Austria |
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