Bonding of vegetable oils to mercapto silane treated metal surfaces: Surface engineering on the nano scale

In this paper the bonding of thin vegetable oil films on mercapto silane treated aluminium surfaces has been studied. The silane molecules are attached to the surface by metal–oxygen–silicon bonds. The coupling between the unsaturated bonds of the vegetable oil and the thiol functionalised surface was obtained through a photoinduced thiol-ene reaction. The surfaces were characterised by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Vegetable oil contains both saturated and unsaturated carbon chains. For the reactions investigated in this study it is the unsaturated carbon chains that can react by a thiol-ene reaction and the results indicate that it is possible to attach a vegetable oil to a metal surface pre-treated with a thiol functionalised silane.