A scratch-resistant single-layer antireflective coating by a low temperature sol-gel route

A novel quarterwave-thick narrow-bandwidth antireflective coating has been developed for both plastic and vitreous substrates by a sol-gel route. This coating has revealed pronounced scratch- and climatic-resistance under adverse conditions. The single-layer coating consists basically of a composite material made of silica as the discontinuous phase and of a polytetrafluoroethylene-derived (Teflon¹) organic polymer as the continuous phase. This leads to fluorine-containing colloidal silica product, or a so-called Flucosil coating. The coating is applied by spinning or dipping from specific solutions at room temperature followed by a mild and short heat treatment. In addition to remarkable abrasion and environmental resistance properties, such coatings have displayed excellent laser-induced damage threshold levels, surpassing uncoated substrates.We hope such a product might open new perspectives concerning household articles, architectural optical thin-films, ophthalmic uses, and so on.     

Scratch and Abrasion Resistant Coatings on Plastic Lenses—State of the Art,Current Developments and Perspectives

The manufacturing of ophthalmic lenses is one of the most important markets worldwide and, therefore, strong research efforts are undertaken to continuously improve the quality of the products, either silicate glasses or organic polymer lenses. Hybrid sol-gel based materials play a major role in this highly competitive field and have contributed significantly to the commercial success of the organic base materials. Recent developments concern fast curing and patternable coatings that might soon become part of this business. The compatibility of hybrid sol-gel materials either with organic dyes or with inorganic vacuum borne coatings offers further possibilities to develop highly sophisticated lenses meeting not only customer needs like perfect corrective function, high optical quality and protection, but also high durability as well as cosmetic and decorative aspects. An overview and a few recent developments are outlined below.     

Degradation-fragmentation of marine plastic waste and their environmental implications: A critical review

This review critically evaluates the plastic accumulation challenges and their environmental (primarily) and human (secondarily) impacts. It also emphasizes on their degradation and fragmentation phenomena under marine conditions. In addition, it takes into account the leachability of the various chemical substances (additives) embedded in plastic products to improve their polymeric properties and extend their life. Regardless of their effectiveness in enhancing the polymeric function of plastic products, these additives can potentially contaminate air, soil, food, and water. Several findings have shown that, regardless of their types and sizes, plastics can be degraded and/or fragmented under marine conditions. Therefore, the estimation of fragmentation and degradation rates via a reliable developed model is required to better understand the marine environmental status. The main parameter, which is responsible for initiating the fragmentation of plastics, is sunlight/UV radiation. Yet, UV- radiation alone is not enough to fragment some plastic polymer types under marine conditions, additional factors are needed such as mechanical abrasion. It should be also mentioned that most current studies on plastic degradation and fragmentation centered on the primary stages of degradation. Thus, further studies are needed to better understand these phenomena and to identify their fate and environmental effects.     

Use of blowing catalysts for integral skin polyurethane applications in a controlled molecular architectural environment: Synthesis and impact on ultimate physical properties

Polyurethane elastomers of a controlled molecular architecture were synthesized using a two‐step polymerization technique. The building blocks of the elastomeric materials included urea–urethane prepolymers end‐capped with diisocyanate groups and had an exact number of urea groups at both ends. Two‐dimensional bifurcated hydrogen‐bonding networks incorporating the urea groups were, with differential scanning calorimetric and dynamic mechanical thermal analyzer techniques, responsible for the increase in the glass‐transition temperature (T_g) of the hard block and sharp interface morphology between the pure “hard” domains and pure “soft” domains. The higher extent of the phase separation between the two phases contributed to higher elastic moduli for the hard blocks and higher tensile strength for the elastomeric samples. Higher elongation values were attributed to the liberation of the elastomeric chain ends that otherwise would have been constrained in the interface region. The higher T_g values of the hard blocks corresponded to an increase in the hardness values and a decrease in the tear‐strength values. The increase in the amount of urea groups within the hard segments, as a result of the increased amount of water and blowing catalyst, resulted in elastomeric foams with higher open‐cell content. This resulted in lower resilience values as measured using the pendulum rebound test and was attributed to the ability of the open cells to absorb and dissipate energy. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 40: 2526–2536, 2002     

光固化环氧丙烯酸酯/SiO2杂化材料的研究

用FTIR、SEM、DSC和TGA表征了光固化环氧丙烯酸酯／SiO2杂化材料[(EA-TMSPM)／SiO2]，研究了盐酸、γ-甲基丙烯酰氧丙基三甲氧基硅烷(TMSPM)和无机物浓度对(EA-TMSPM)／SiO2结构与性能的影响。结果表明，无机物浓度高的(EA-TMSPM)／SiO2杂化体系中SiO2粒子尺寸略大于无机物浓度低的体系；盐酸和无机物浓度的增加，都可以增强杂化材料的耐磨性。     

镍钛记忆合金自补偿磨粒磨损性能研究

研究了高临界温度镍钛记忆合金一维自补偿磨粒磨损特性.结果表明,在一定温度下,镍钛记忆合金在摩擦过程中具有形状恢复能力,从而产生一维磨损自补偿作用.超弹状态镍钛记忆合金具有热弹性马氏体相变、高阻尼、应力感生马氏体、超弹性、高应变硬化指数和时效弥散析出强化等特性,这使得硬度较低的镍钛合金的耐磨性能远优于硬度较高的淬火45#钢.利用超弹状态镍钛记忆合金的磨损自补偿作用可望开发出新型抗磨形状记忆合金产品.     

Physical Properties of Sol-Gel Coatings

One of the most important applications of sol-gel technology is the fabrication of coatings. This is because of the possibility of applying oxide coatings with practically all types of chemical compositions at low ambient temperatures on many substrates of various shapes through the use of liquid solutions. Both oxides and different types of organic-inorganic hybrid coatings have been reported. Both oxides and hybrid coatings are usually amorphous at ambient temperatures but some oxides can be converted to the crystalline phase with heating. Regardless of the intended applications of the coatings their physical properties are always of importance. For instance, an anti-reflective coating for an automobile mirror is of little practical value unless it is fairly scratch-resistant. In this review which covers published information in the past fifteen years, some of the more important results of physical properties of sol-gel derived coatings are discussed firstly for oxides and then for organic-inorganic hybrids. It appears that properties such as the hardness of oxide coatings are inadequate unless the heat-treatment temperatures are in excess of about 400°C. The hybrid coatings, especially when they contain a dispersed phase of a hard solid like colloidal silica, can be processed at temperatures below about 150°C and can improve the performance of organic plastics such as the polycarbonates. There is insufficient scientific understanding of the relationship between physical properties and other interdependent variables such as processing conditions, chemistry and coating thickness. More research in this area will undoubtedly contribute to the availability of better and new coatings via the sol-gel approach.     

斯特林制冷机磨损和污染的特性分析

针对分置式斯特林制冷机存在的磨损和污染主要失效模式,论述了磨损特性的激振法测阻尼比试验方法和工质污染的分析方法和结果。磨损和污染的试验分析方法可用于斯特林制冷机研制时的失效模式控制。     

Effects of the Synergy of Hardness and Resilience on the Akron Abrasion Properties of SBR Vulcanizates

The hardness (H) and resilience (R) of rubber vulcanizates were combined together in this paper, named as hardness–resilience product (H⁴R), and its relationship with the Akron abrasion loss was investigated using various styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) vulcanizates possessing specific hardness and resilience characteristics as samples. For the unfilled SBR vulcanizates with different chain microstructure, possessing high elastic resilience and low hardness, the results showed that their Akron abrasion loss had a good linear relationship with the log(H⁴100R). This linear relationship also occurred when these SBRs were filled with 50 phr carbon black. For two particular types of SBR, after being filled with different fractions of carbon black and aged for different times, all their Akron abrasion losses (including unaged, aged for 24 h, and aged for 48 h) also had a good linear relationship with the log(H⁴100R). However, this linear relationship weakened for one of the SBRs after being aged for 48 h. In the high H⁴R region (the carbon black fractions being 60 and 70 phr), the data obviously deviated from the fitting curve due to the high hardness of the aged vulcanizates. However, after being filled with 50 phr of various kinds of carbon blacks, the relationships between abrasion loss and log(H⁴100R) were also approximately linear, with the correlation coefficient of the fitting curves being 0.99966 and 0.99878, respectively, for the two types of SBR.     

Untersuchung der tribologischen Eigenschaften von Nutzfahrzeugmotoren unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Luftfiltration

Es wurde eine unter Betriebsverhältnissen anwendbare Prüfmethode für die Bestimmung der Verschleβeigenschaften von Verbrennungsmotoren mit Hilfe der Gammaspektrometrie der neutronenaktivierten Verschleiβprodukte ausgearbeitet und die die Lebensdauer begrenzende Wirkung des abrasiven Verschleiβes festgestellt. Durch Verbesserung der Luftfilterung konnte die potentielle Lebensdauer der Motoren gut angenähert, und es konnten die Verunreinigung des Schmieröls vermindert und die Dauer der Ölwechselperiode verdoppelt werden.