Polycarbonate (PC) is a versatile tough plastic used for a variety of applications, from bulletproof transparent windows to compact disks. The main advantage of PC is its enhanced mechanical properties combined with exceptional clarity.
PC is applied widely in many industries, however PC is known also to degrade upon exposure to Ultra Violet (UV) radiation its sensitivity to stress cracking due to exposure to harsh environment. To overcome PC's drawbacks, various coatings are commonly applied on the polymer surface.
The coatings offer chemical, harsh weather and UV protection for long term. In addition to the protective type coatings, various functional coatings have been studied and developed to diversify PC applications exploiting its high transparency.
Two types of functional coating were investigated in this work.
The first one is related to high abrasion resistant coatings based on thermally cured silicone resins or UV cured urethane acrylate (UA). Best properties were obtained when the composition contained advanced initiators ensuring high curing conversion level upon exposure to UV radiation. The curing degree was followed by using Attenuated Total reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-IR) spectroscopy.
The second one deals with surface energetics for Easy Clean (EC) of PC sheets. The hydrophobic nature of the EC was obtained by combining Fluor chemistry and micro/nano texturing based on double layer morphology that was studied using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The surface roughness was based on silica micro/nano particles that were treated by luoroalkylsilanes (FAS). EC properties were obtained exhibiting water contact angle above 110° and sliding angle below 20°.
