The sol-gel process has been employed to generate hybrid inorganic-organic network materials. Unique ceramers were prepared based on an alkoxysilane functionalized soft organic oligomer, poly(propylene oxide) (PPO), and tetramethoxysilane (TMOS). Despite the formation of covalent bonds between the inorganic and organic constituents, the resulting network materials were phase separated, composed of a silicate rich phase embedded in a matrix of the organic oligomer chains. The behavior of such materials was similar to elastomers containing a reinforcing filler. The study focused on the influence of initial oligomer molecular weight, functionality, and tetramethoxysilane, water, and acid catalyst content on the final structure, mechanical and thermal properties. The sol-gel approach has also been exploited to generate thin, transparent, abrasion resistant coatings for metal substrates. These systems were based on alkoxysilane functionazized diethylenetriamine (DETA) with TMOS, which generated hybrid networks with very high crosslink densities. These materials were applied with great success as abrasion resistant coatings to aluminum, copper, brass, and stainless steel. In another study, intercalated polymer-clay nanocomposites were prepared based on various epoxy networks montmorillonite clay. This work explored the influence of incorporated clay on the adhesive properties of the epoxies. The lap shear strength decreased with increasing clay content. This was due to a reduction in the toughness of the epoxy. Also, the delaminated (or exfoliated) nanocomposite structure could not be generated. Instead, all nanocomposite systems possessed an intercalated structure. The final project involved the characterization of a series of metallocene catalyzed linear polyethylenes, produced at Phillips Petroleum. Polyolefins synthesized with such new catalyst systems are becoming widely available. The influence of molecular weight and thermal treatment on the mechanical, rheological, and thermal behavior was probed. Although the behavior of this series of metallocene polyethylenes was not unlike that of traditionally catalyzed materials, this work is one of the first comprehensive studies of these new linear polyethylenes. The main distinction between the metallocene and traditional Ziegler-Natta catalyzed polyethylenes is the narrow molecular weight distributions produced by the former (for this series of materials, 2.3< Mw  Mn <3.6). / Ph. D.

Inorganic-organic hybrid materials have been developed using sol-gel reactions of a trialkoxysilylated organic compound and a metal or semi-metal alkoxide and applied as coatings on polymeric or metallic substrates. Many of these coatings have demonstrated good to excellent abrasion resistance. Abrasion resistant coatings were prepared by hydrolysis and condensation of mixtures of a triethoxysilylated diethylenetriamine (f-DETA), tetramethoxysilane (TMOS), water and an alcohol in the presence of an acid catalyst (a one-step hydrolysis approach). The influences of many formulation and processing variables on the gelation time, optical properties, hardness and abrasion resistance were investigated. An aminolysis mechanism was also proposed to explain the adhesion between sol-gel derived coatings and polycarbonate substrates promoted by a 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (3-APS) primer. FT-IR, GPC, 1H and 13C NMR, XPS experiments were conducted to support this mechanism. The f-DETA/TMOS system is essentially a binary system of an alkyltriethoxysilane (T) and a tetraalkoxysilane (Q). At pH 0-2 and pH 4-5, the relative condensation reactivities of the T and Q species in this system were compared using 29Si NMR spectroscopy. After thermal curing, 13C or 29Si solid state NMR spectroscopy was used to estimate the extent of hydrolysis of the urea linkages in f-DETA, the concentration of residual alkoxysilane groups, and the extent of condensation for both T and Q species. The dependence of the morphology of f-DETA/TMOS gels on the pH and the water concentration was also investigated using AFM, SEM and SAXS. Many other trialkoxysilylated organic compounds containing urea, urethane, epoxy and siloxane linkages were also synthesized and utilized to prepare abrasion resistant coatings via a one-step hydrolysis approach, a two-step hydrolysis approach or a moisture-curing approach. Coatings derived from many of these systems or approaches demonstrated abrasion resistance comparable to that of the f-DETA/TMOS coating. Thin coatings were also derived from cubic octasilicate monomers via hydrosilylation or sol-gel reactions. These coatings were very transparent but unfortunately lacked abrasion resistance. / Ph. D.