Abstract
Rapid development of coatings with atomic oxygen (AO) resistance, which benefit long-duration exploration mission in low earth orbit (LEO), poses a challenging requirement on flexible coatings with excellent bonding property. Metal organic framework (MOF) has abundant sites and organic–inorganic hybrid chemical composition, which displays potential in increasing AO resistance, flexibility and bonding property simultaneously. Here, we combined surface modification and spin-coating to prepare MIL-53(Al) (a kind of materials of Lavashir skeleton) coated polyimide (PI) thin film exhibiting excellent flexibility, bonding property and AO resistance, which had no cracks after bending 1000 times, had no peeling off and had only 12% erosion yield compared with pristine PI, verified by the bend test, cross-cut tape test and AO exposure experiment respectively. Also, the mechanism of homogeneous film formation was explained, in which MIL-53(Al) seed layer provided binding force between coating and substrate, and the microstructural transformation caused by breathing effect and negative linear compressibility (NLC) prevented the occurrence of coating cracking. This work extends the application range of MIL-53(Al), optimizes the application of MOFs film formation, and offers a new idea to protect the spacecrafts in LEO.
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