The effect of curing and zirconium content on the wettability and structure of a silicate hybrid sol-gel material

Functional hybrid sol-gel coatings have been developed for numerous applications with a wide range of wettabilities. This study proposes to investigate the relationship between the structure and the wetting properties of a zirconium modified silicate hybrid sol-gel coating. The structures of the coatings were altered by varying the content of zirconium, and the curing process, while keeping the sol-gel preparation conditions identical. The structure of the materials was characterized by FTIR, ²⁹Si NMR and SEM. The thermal properties and the wettability are identified by DSC and contact angle measurements, respectively. By corroborating the structural and wettability analyses, it is shown that the transition metal minimizes the thermally-assisted condensation of the silicate network and enables to stabilize the wetting properties at higher hydrophilic values. This article highlights that the wettability of hybrid sol-gel coatings can be controlled by both the curing process and transition metal content.