Effect of addition of surface modified nanosilica into silica–zirconia hybrid sol–gel matrix

An organic–inorganic hybrid sol (MZ) comprising a methacrylate functionalized silane matrix (M) and zirconium-n-propoxide (Z) was prepared using sol–gel technique. Two methodologies were adopted to modify the hybrid sol for generating nanocomposite coatings viz., (a) addition of acrylic surface modified silica nanoparticles (N) of diameter ∼20 nm to the sol to enhance their compatibility with the hybrid sol–gel matrix and (b) in-situ formation of a three dimensional silica network by addition of tetraethoxy silane (T) to the sol MZ. In the first methodology, the sols were prepared with six different weight ratios of the nanoparticles to the sol, i.e. 0, 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25 and 1 which were labelled as MZ+Nx where x=0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively. The prepared sols were dip coated on 100 mm×100 mm polycarbonate substrates followed by thermal curing at 130 °C. The coatings were characterized for their mechanical properties like pencil scratch hardness, scratch resistance using scratch tester, nanoindentation hardness, and abrasion resistance as well as visible light transmittance. FT-IR studies were also carried out on heat-treated gels derived from the sols. A maximum pencil scratch hardness of 3H was obtained for the MZ+T coatings and these coatings withstood a critical load of 4.3±0.7 N before failure during scratch test. The maximum nanoindentation hardness of 3.8±0.01 GPa was obtained for the MZ+N5 coatings. The abrasion resistance of MZ+T coatings was higher when compared to MZ+N0 and MZ+N5 coatings. The scratch and nanoindentation hardness were seen to be better for an in-situ formed –Si–O–Si– network in the hybrid sol when compared to those obtained from coatings generated by external addition of acrylic surface modified silica nanoparticles. The difference in properties was attributed to the level of interaction between the nanoparticles and hybrid sol–gel matrix.