Preparation and optical properties of titania/epoxy nanocomposite coatings

This work reports the preparation of TiO2/Epoxy nanocomposites coatings with high refractive index and optical transparency. Highly dispersed titania nanoparticles were synthesized by sol-gel method at room temperature. The TiO2 nanoparticles can be dispersed directly into the polymer without the use of organic surfactant. Nanocomposite coating with refractive index of 1.668 can be obtained by adding 30 wt% TiO2 nanoparticles into the polymer matrix. All coatings with different amount of TiO2 exhibit excellent optical transparency of more than 90%. Although higher refractive index of the nanocomposite can be obtained by increasing the content of TiO2 nanoparticles, cracks also appear in the surface of the hybrid coating. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.