Incorporating metal-oxide nanoparticles such as nano-alumina and nano-silica into polymer coatings to enhance mechanical durability is widely utilized in the current antiscratch and mar technologies. In this article, a quantitative study of the effect of a nanoalumina additive on the surface mechanical properties and scratch behavior of a two-part polyurethane coating is reported. An instrumented indenter with a conical diamond tip is used to measure surface mechanical properties (modulus and hardness) and to perform scratch tests, over a wide range of scratch loads. The scratch behavior in terms of the onset of elastic-plastic transition and scratch morphology were characterized by laser scanning confocal microscopy. The scratch results were correlated to the surface mechanical properties and relevant bulk material properties to understand the overall scratch behavior of the coatings. The results show that the scratch behavior of the coatings depends strongly on the concentration of nano-alumina.
Atomic Force Microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy were used to study shear-induced alignment of alumina and silica nanoparticles in twocomponent polyurethane clear coatings. 1-D strings of nanoparticles, formed in an extended pearl-necklace fashion were observed near the surfaces of cured films at nanoparticle volume fractions less than 0.05. This alignment is affected by the shear conditions of the application method. When applied by spraying, linear particle strings as long as 5 cm were observed in the direction of shear. Nanoparticle strings were also found, to a lesser extent, when coatings were applied by a drawdown method. The phenomenon was not observed in coatings applied with minimal shear. These particle string formations, in addition to affecting the performance of coatings, may have broader implications in the field of nanomaterials. Our literature searches so far have not uncovered reports of stable, 1-D nanoparticle arrangements with same degree of linearity produced under simple shear with compositions having very low particle loadings.
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