Adhesion promoting silane coupling agents

The book s fourth major section covers additives, including adhesion promoters, silane coupling agents, coating and colorants, dispersants and coupling agents, functional fillers for plastics, flame retardants, plasticizers, and stabilizers. 

Thus, a sufficiently thin layer or film of silane is an essential requirement for successful use as an adhesion promoter or coupling agent. 

Three primary mechanisms have been suggested for enhanced adhesion via silane coupling agents.5 The classical explanation is that the functional group on the silane molecule reacts with the adhesive resin. Another possibility is that the polysiloxane surface layer has an open porous structure. The liquid adhesive penetrates the porosity and then hardens to form an interpenetrating interphase region. The third mechanism applies only to polymeric adherends. It is possible that the solvent used to dilute and apply the silane adhesion promoter opens the molecular structure on the substrate surface, allowing the silane to penetrate and diffuse into the adherend. 

Some highly reactive low-molecular-weight silanes are used as adhesion promoters or coupling agents, and chlorosilanes are used as intermediates. They will be reviewed in turn. 

The adhesion promotion of an organic matrix to an inorganic substrate using a silane has been studied to model the structure of the created interphase [64-66]. The polymer/silane interphase is influenced by the solubility parameter of both the silane coupling agent and the polymer. More interdiffusion occurs when the solubility parameters of the polymer and the silane closely match together. It is believed that this model can be applied to silicone adhesive/solid substrate system. 

Various additives and fillers may be employed. Calcium carbonate, talc, carbon black, titanium dioxide, and wollastonite are commonly used as fillers. Plasticizers are often utilized also. Plasticizers may reduce viscosity and may help adhesion to certain substrates. Thixotropes such as fumed silica, structured clays, precipitated silica, PVC powder, etc. can be added. Adhesion promoters, such as silane coupling agents, may also be used in the formulation [69]. 

Injecting epoxy, furan, or furan-formaldehyde resins into poorly consolidated formations to consolidate them was a common sand control practice for thin highly productive formations (44-46). Organic solvents (46) and silane coupling agents (47) are used to promote adhesion of the resin to the rock surface. Excess resin is flushed deeper into the formation to minimize resin hardening in the flow channels since this would reduce formation permeability. 

Silane coupling agents are very effective adhesion promoters between glass and certain thermoplastic polymers where no chemical reaction between coupling agent and polymer is observed. 

The kinetics of the hydrolysis and condensation of organic functional trialkoxy silanes has been reported by Pohl and Osterholtz [17-19]. The silane coupling agents used as adhesion promoters [1-3] usually have a trialkoxy silane as one of the functional groups, i.e. (MeO)3Si—(CH,),—0,CC(Me)=CH2. If this attaches to a glass substrate, it will form Si—O—Si bonds or if it attaches to metal substrates, it can form M—O—Si bonds. Thus, the work described here can be applicable to providing additional understanding for those processes. 

A recent review [1] on polyimide adhesion to metal and ceramic surfaces shows the relevance of this topic to many different technological areas. Of all the polyimides studied thus far, it is evident that the most popular one is PMDA-ODA. It has very good mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties, but it suffers from poor adhesion characteristics. This problem is often overcome by the application of an adhesion promoter to the surface of interest. The most popular adhesion promoter appears to be APS. An excellent review concerning APS has been written by Ishida [2]. A wealth of information concerning silane coupling agents can also be found in the book by Plueddemann [3],... 

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