Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings (CSOL)
Coating Equipment
Flat spray unit
A spraying unit for flat substrates of varying dimensions up to 600 mm x 600 mm is available at the Centre. The sample table has a maximum displacement of 2000 mm. A variety of coating parameters, such as the transverse and lateral speeds of the spraying nozzles along with the table speed can be controlled to obtain coatings of desired quality. The unit is attached to a drying oven for baking the coatings prepared.
Spray coating line
A chain type coating line equipped with 95 spindles for coating of symmetrical components has been installed and commissioned. The unit is capable of coating up to 900 components per hour and the conveyor speed can vary from 1 to 15 parts per min. The coated components can be heated / dried in an adjoining IR chamber. The dimensions of a typical component that can be handled are 200 mm height and 150 mm diameter.
Spin coater
Two desk top spin coating units are available for carrying out experiments at the lab scale. The largest sample that can be handled for spin coating would be a wafer of dimensions 200 mm x 200 mm.
Dip coater
A table-top dip coater, is available for carrying out lab-scale experiments on 100 mm square substrates of up to 5 mm thickness. Variable withdrawal speed allows control over film characteristics such as thickness and uniformity. Angle dependant dip coater-can take up 1 m x 1 m substrates and can be tilted up to an angle of 15 degrees.
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IR - Curing System
Model & Make
Oven type Near Infra Red (NIR) Curing System, Advance Curing Systems (ACS), Bangalore
Specifications
- Heating source : Near Infrared Lamps
- Number of lamps : 6 Nos
- Power : 27 kW
- Heating area : 250 mm x 120 mm
- Temperature control : Thyristor with PLC
- Max Temperature : 350oC
Details
The absorption of NIR radiation by organic molecules leads to molecular vibrations that generates the heat by the material itself. This phenomenon has various applications such as in drying, evaporation, gelling and hardening etc. of coatings/materials. Use of IR radiation for curing of coatings has the advantage of efficiency, energy saving and better performance when compared to conventional curing method. The available NIR curing facility has IR emitters with gold reflector so as to utilize 95% of the available radiation to cure the work piece surface.
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Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings
IR Curing system
Pilot Plant for the Large Scale Synthesis of Sols
Details
A pilot plant for the synthesis of inorganic and organic-inorganic hybrid sols has been set up. It consists of three reactors of capacities 100 l, 20 l and 10 l with storage vessels of various capacities (from 30 l up to 200 l) attached to the respective reactors. Known quantities of the precursors or reactants can be transferred from the storage vessels into the reactors. Small additions of chemicals can be precisely controlled through suitable dosing systems, provided. The reactors can be operated in the temperature range -5oC to 150oC. The plant is equipped with sophisticated process controls and safety mechanisms for efficiently producing large volumes of sols. The prepared sols can be collected in receivers and transported for coating, curing and densification.Centre
Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings
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Portable hand held Emissometer
Model & Make
AE 1, Devices & Services Company, Texas, USA
Specifications
- Measurement area : 0.75" (in flat samples); 1.0" (in tube samples)
Details
The portable emissometer measures the thermal emissivity of a material/coating. Thermal emittance measurements with the emissometer require that the high and low emittance standards and the sample to be measured be maintained at the same temperature. To achieve a uniform temperature, the instrument is provided with a heat sink on which the standards as well as the sample (normally flat) is to be mounted. Appropriate adapters can be used to measure the emittance of curved profiles also. The accuracy or repeatability of the instrument at room temperature for any particular measurement is high.
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Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings
Portable hand held emissometer
Portable Surface Roughness Tester
Details
TESA- rugosurf 90G is a portable surface roughness tester having the distinctive properties required for use in a laboratory to measure surface roughness parameters according to the following standards.
ISO 4287:1997, JIS B0601:2001, ASME B46-2002, ISO13565, JIS B0671, DIN and ISO 12085:1998 JIS B0631:2000
Adjustable measuring parameters of instrument:
- Cut off length : 0, 08-0, 25-0,8-2, 5-8 mm
- Number of cut offs : 1 to 19 or 1 to 5 for a 8 mm cut off length
- Probing speed : 0.5 or 1 mm/sec.
This is used to measure the surface roughness of both uncoated and coated samples for optimisation of surface roughness parameters.
- Cut off length : 0, 08-0, 25-0,8-2, 5-8 mm
- Number of cut offs : 1 to 19 or 1 to 5 for a 8 mm cut off length
- Probing speed : 0.5 or 1 mm/sec.
This is used to measure the surface roughness of both uncoated and coated samples for optimisation of surface roughness parameters.
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Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings
Roller Coating Unit with UV Curing Facility
Details
Roller coating unit to deposit sol-gel coatings on flat substrates with varying thickness from 0.5 mm to 10 mm, 300 mm width and 500 mm length dimensions is available at the Centre. The conveyorized unit has an inline UV curing facility to instantly polymerise and bake the coatings. The conveyor speed can be altered in the range of 0 m/sec to 10 m/sec to optimise the coating thickness that shall change as a function of sol viscosity. Metals, ceramics, plastics, paper and wooden substrates can be coated on one surface using the machine.
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Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings
Thin Film Analyzer
Model & Make
F20, Filmetrics Inc., USA
Specifications
- Thickness range : 15 nm to 50 µm
- Accuracy : 1 nm
- Precision : 0.1 nm
- Stability : 0.07 nm
- Wavelength : 400 to 1000 nm
Details:
The thin film analyzer works based on the intensity measurement of reflecting and transmitting light through the sample. Hence, thickness of only transparent coatings can be measured, though the substrates can be of transparent or non-transparent nature. There are possibilities of using a contact or a non-contact probe depending upon the nature of film and the substrate.
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Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings
Thin Film Analyzer
UV - Curing system
Model & Make
Conveyorised 3 Lamp UV Curing System, Advance Curing Systems, Bangalore
Specifications
- Light source : Medium Pressure Hg Quartz Lamps
- Power : 300 W/inches (each lamp)
- Curing width : 1000 mm (Max)
- Belt speed : 0.5 to 15 m/min
- Component Height : 25 mm
- Cooling : Centrifugal Blowers
- Mode : Auto and manual
Details
The main advantage of use of organic-inorganic hybrid coating systems is the use of low temperature radiation assisted curing for densification of coatings. The importance of ultraviolet (UV) curing especially realized when functional coatings like scratch resistant coatings, antireflective coatings etc. need to be cured on temperature sensitive transparent plastic substrates like polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and polycarbonate (PC). The unit is conveyorised having three lamps emitting UV radiation. The power of each UV lamp can be controlled individually. The centrifugal blowers attached to each lamp help to cool the substrate and remove the volatile organic by-products upon UV irradiation. A part of the equipment (substrate feed in) is placed inside the clean room and the lamps along with the hoods are placed outside the clean room. The conveyor belt is capable of an automated reverse motion, so that once curing has been completed during the forward motion of the belt, the cured substrate is brought back into the clean room due to the reverse motion of the conveyor belt.
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Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings
UV Curing system
uv-curing-system-Inside-clean-room
UV-Vis NIR Spectrometer
Specifications
- Wavelength : 200 to 3600 nm (300 to 2400 nm for integrating sphere)
- Make and model: Shimadzu, Japan UV-3600 Plus
Details
UV/Vis spectroscopy is mainly used in quantitative analysis in analytical chemistry. In the field of material science predominantly used to study the optical properties of materials, such as absorption, transmittance and reflectance of the developing material. Some extend it is used to estimate the energy band gap of semi-conductors. The samples can be finely divided powders, low concentration solutions and solids or thin films.
Contact person – Dr K Murugan, murugan@arci.res.in
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Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings
UV-Vis NIR Spectrometer
Viscometer
Model & Make
ViscoLab 4100, Cambridge Applied Systems, Inc
Specifications
- Viscosity : 0.2 to 10,000 centipoise
- Minimum sample required : less than 2 ml of fluid
- Operation temperature : -40 - 90oC
- pH of the fluid : 2.5 - 11
- Time required per sample: 30 minutes
Details
The vibrational viscometer, has been used to study rheological behaviour of ceramic powder suspensions. The principle of measurement of viscosity in a vibrational viscometer is based on damping of an oscillating electromechanical resonator immersed in a fluid whose viscosity is to be determined.
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Centre for Sol-gel Coatings
Viscometer
Weathering Resistance Measurement System
Model & Make
Xenon test chamber model XE-3-HBS, Q-Lab Corporation, USA
Specifications
- Number of xenon lamps: 3
- Possible temperature range of test chamber: 25-110oC
- Range of relative humidity control : 10-95%
- Appropriate filters available for simulation of solar radiation behind window glass as well as for outdoor solar radiation
Details
The xenon test chamber is a laboratory testing facility to evaluate the product durability for indoor as well as outdoor conditions by exposing the product to simulated weather conditions. This accelerated testing facility has mostly been used in development and durability evaluation of paints/coatings for corrosion protection, anti-reflective, anti-tarnishing application as well as in the evaluation of the UV/weather resistance of polymer products/coatings.. The Q-SUN tester's user interÂface is designed to be functional, highly reliable and easy to use. Xenon arc lamps produce the most realistic reproduction of the full specÂtrum of solar radiation. The humidity and temperature corresponding to varying weather conditions can also be simulated accurately.
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Centre for Sol-Gel Coatings
