Preparation of Antistatic Organic-Inorganic Nanocomposite Coatings Based on Epoxy-Silane Containing ITO Nanoparticles

Several nanocomposite hybrid coatings based on epoxy-silane containing various amounts of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) nanoparticles are studied. The hybrid sols are prepared using 3 glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) and tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) precursors in the presence of Ethylene Diamine (EDA) as a curing agent by sol- gel process. The mean particles size of primary sol solution and solution with ITO nanoparticles was obtained lower than 100 nm by Laser Light Scattering (DLS) data. With Transtion Electron Microscopy (TEM) the cubic shape and the nanometric size of the ITO nanoparticles in the hybrid organic-inorganic coatings are shown. The uniformly distributed of ITO nanoparticles in polymer matrix are examined by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Also, the thickness of hybrid coatings on glass substrates was approximately 10 μm. Evaluation of antistatic and optical properties showed that the surface electrical resistance of coationgs was significantly reduced by increasing the amount of the ITO nanoparticles and in the range of 1% to 2% wt. of nanoparticles, coatings have electrical performance and high transparency (more than 80%). With Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis, the presence and appropriate distribution of silicon (Si), Indium (In), Tin (Sn) elements in hybrid nanocomposite coatings containing ITO nanoparticles was confirmed.