Fast-cured UV-LED polymer materials filled with high mineral contents as wear-resistant, antibacterial coatings

Abstract

Development of ultraviolet (UV) curing technique has greatly expanded the preparation and application of polymer composite coatings due to its unique characteristics of high efficiency curing and controllable operation. However, the inevitable hazards of high pressure mercury lamps, as well as difficulty resulting from large amount of heat release when coating products, greatly limit the practical application and development of such curing coatings. Herein, a series of novel controllable, fast-cured coatings filled with high mineral contents were successfully designed and synthesized based on progressive ultraviolet light emitting diode (UV-LED) technology with ultra-low energy consumption. Due to the addition of a large number of opaque mineral particles, a new polymerization mechanism for the system was proposed and verified. Inorganic particle fillers (μm-level) can produce various degrees of reflective or refractive points, thus effectively reducing the barrier effect of the filling particles and realizing a much deeper solidification. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were then combined with this composite material to fabricate a long-term antibacterial interior wall base-coating without interference with the curing effects. More importantly, the various effects of reactants of polymeric composite coatings with high inorganic mineral content for such UV-LED curing systems (365 nm) were brought to as comprehensive a conclusion as possible. This coating remained stable over a 15-week period against bacteria with the bactericidal coefficient of approximately 99.5% for E. coli and about 97% for S. aureus. We believe that proposed applicable polymerization mechanism will greatly enrich the current UV polymerization system, especially for polymer composite material with high mineral contents, and our designed wear resistance, high-hardness, and long-term antibacterial coating will also have great application prospects in many practical fields.