Advanced polymer-inorganic hybrid hard coatings utilizing in situ polymerization method

Hard coatings are frequently used to give plastics high scratch resistance. Coating hardness and adhesion to the substrate are considered to be key factors influencing scratch resistance, but it is difficult to produce coatings that have both properties. Hybridization of polymers and inorganic materials is a promising approach for solving this problem. We prepared polymer-silica hybrid coatings by using in situ polymerization to carry out radical polymerization of vinyl monomers in a sol-gel solution of alkoxysilanes, and measured the abrasion resistance of the coatings. However, the expected properties were not obtained because the sol-gel reaction did not perfectly proceed on the surface of the coatings under the N2 conditions. We found that curing the hybrid coatings by UV irradiation in air promoted the sol-gel reaction on the surface, resulting in coatings having excellent abrasion resistance.