Coating of Polymer Surfaces by Liquid Phase Deposition of TiO₂: A Biologically-Inspired Approach

Abstract:

The coating of polymer surfaces with ceramics up to now is basically only accomplishable by vacuum-based technologies such as sputtering, because the thermal load is low compared to other methods such as sol-gel processing. Since the investment costs for the equipment required are considerably high and the coating is limited to line-of sight deposition, simple and cost-effective processing routes are sought. In all higher organisms inorganic materials are synthesized at ambient temperatures under physiological conditions. Therefore the study of biomineralization processes has gained considerable academic attention in the last decades. One of the key features of inorganic material deposition in vito is the interaction between supersaturated solutions and specifically modified surfaces. Following this paradigm so-called bio-inspired approaches can be developed which go beyond the current limitations of synthetic techniques. One example is the mineralization of planar polymer surfaces with TiO2 at 50oC. Using polystyrene latex particles as templates, all four stages commonly found in natural biomineralization can be emulated in a completely artificial system.