Atomistic study of adhesion of PU/PTFE coating on aluminium oxide surface.

The effectiveness of coatings depends upon various factors and adhesion of the coating to a metallic surface is one of them. Polyurethane (PU) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) are widely used polymeric coatings for the protection of metallic surfaces. The adhesion of PU and PTFE films on the aluminium oxide substrate is investigated by employing MD simulations. The effect of temperature variation on both the polymeric films has been also studied. Results depict that as the temperature increases the adhesion energy of both the polymers increases in the range from 273.15 K to 298 K. However, there is no such applications of these polymeric coatings at higher temperature like 548 K, the interaction energy is also calculated at 548 K to predict the behaviour of these polymers at elevated temperatures. PU was found to be more thermally stable compared to PTFE. Moreover, PU adhesion with the aluminium oxide surface was much greater when compared to PTFE which possibly resulted from the existence of oxygen atoms in PU which are responsible for greater adhesion between polymer and metal surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]