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Preparation of highly transparent and wear-resistant SiO2 coating by alkali/acid dual catalyzed sol–gel method

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Abstract

In this paper, a sol–gel method was adopted, using tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as a precursor, to prepare hollow silica spheres through alkali-catalyzed sol, and further to form a long-chain structure through acid catalysis. The alkali-aluminosilicate glass is coated with hollow silica spheres by a dip coating method, and the anti-reflection (AR) nanostructured silica coatings with different thicknesses and porosities are obtained. The prepared hollow silica spheres have an inner diameter of 20 nm and a wall thickness of 6–20 nm. The average transmittance of the coating at normal incidence within the wavelength range of 300–900 nm is between 94 and 96.9%, a great improvement compared with 91.8% of the substrate. Hollow spherical and long-chain structure of silica is conducive to film formation on the glass surface and endows the film with a high mechanical strength. After 60 friction cycles, the average transmittance is only decreased by 0.6%.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architectures, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Zhuangzhuang Han, Jian Yuan, Peijing Tian, Bing Liu & Jinqi Tan

  2. Shahe Research Institute of Glass Technology, Shahe, 054100, Hebei, People’s Republic of China

    Jian Yuan & Peijing Tian

  3. BCMaterials, Basque Center for Materials, Applications and Nanostructures, UPV/EHU Science Park, 48940, Leioa, Spain

    Qi Zhang

  4. IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Plaza Euskadi, 5, 48009, Bilbao, Spain

    Qi Zhang

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  1. Zhuangzhuang Han
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Correspondence to Jian Yuan.

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Han, Z., Yuan, J., Tian, P. et al. Preparation of highly transparent and wear-resistant SiO2 coating by alkali/acid dual catalyzed sol–gel method. Journal of Materials Research 38, 3316–3323 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43578-023-01062-1

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