Abrasion resistance of silica-based coatings prepared by atmospheric pressure plasma chemical vapor deposition for protection of polymeric surfaces

Silica-based films were synthesized by the dielectric barrier discharge method under atmospheric pressure from tetramethoxysilane and O₂ diluted with N₂. In this study, the coating area was 200 mm in diameter, which could be enlarged by altering shape of the electrodes and expanding the scanning range. Even at the low temperature of 80 °C, the hardness of the films slightly increased up to 4.3 GPa by decreasing the tetramethoxysilane flow rate. The relative ratio of Si-O-Si (cage structure) bonds to Si-O-Si (network structure) decreased, and as a result, the films became harder. Additionally, it was found that silica-based films deposited on acrylic resin-coated polycarbonate substrates had good abrasion resistance; the minimum ΔHz value after 1000 revolutions in the Taber abrasion tests was 2.5%. These results suggest that the silica-based films synthesized under atmospheric pressure have the potential to be used in mass production because the equipment enables low-cost and large-area synthesis. The authors find that there is potential in using atmospheric pressure plasma technology for the automobile industry.