Electron Beam Fabrication of All-Organic Interpenetrating Nanocomposite Coatings

Nanocomposite coatings exhibit outstanding mechanical properties arising from the synergistic combination of the individual components. Complex, energy-intensive, and/or expensive preparation methods have however obstructed their widespread use and large-scale application. In this study, we design, fabricate, and characterize tough all-organic interpenetrating nanocomposite coatings starting from cost-effective, commercially available epoxy and acrylate monomers, and employing electron beam (EB) as a curing technique. A thorough description is presented of the connection between the chemical structure of the monomers, EB-induced formation of the polymer networks, and the final nanoscale morphology. Specific epoxy/acrylate formulations result in nanocomposite materials with tensile toughness and scratch resistance up to 140 MJ m^-3 and 2.5 N, respectively, much improved compared to the pure individual components. The ability to control the structural phase domains and the interpenetration level of the polymer networks, combined with the efficiency and versatility of the EB technology, allows the creation of all-organic nanocomposite coatings with advanced mechanical properties in a facile and scalable way.