SBIR Phase I: Non-Thermal Plasma Source for Functional Metal-Oxide Nanoparticle Coatings

SBIR 第一阶段：用于功能性金属氧化物纳米粒子涂层的非热等离子体源

• 批准号: 1820364
• 负责人: Peter Firth
• 金额: $ 22.38万
• 依托单位: Swift Coat
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-06-01 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1820364&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Non; Thermal; Plasma

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop a novel process and platform for the aerosol synthesis of metal-oxide nanoparticles. When coupled with an existing aerosol deposition technology, this aerosol synthesis source will enable the production of the next generation of functional coatings. These include antireflective and self-cleaning coatings for solar modules, novel electrical contacts that reduce silver usage in solar cells, and thermal barrier coatings for windows that increase thermal efficiency. Each of these represents a large addressable market in need of coatings innovation: For example, the coated flat glass market is expected to reach $43.2B in 2025 and the metal-oxide nanoparticle coatings from this project are anticipated to capture at least 10% of that market. Beyond the commercial and related societal impacts of the project, this project will increase the scientific understanding of the nucleation of nanomaterials in the gas phase and the subsequent manipulation of nanoparticles in low-pressure flows. The intellectual merit of this project lies in its development of a new method to synthesize metal-oxide materials in the gas phase, resulting in an aerosol that can be manipulated and deposited on a substrate with gas flows. Prior art for the synthesis of metal-oxide nanoparticles and the subsequent formation of films suffers from three challenges: (1) synthesis methods that utilize high-pressure gas-phase processes tend to create large light-scattering agglomerates that produce hazy films, (2) "wet" synthesis coating techniques can suffer from stability challenges, optical non-uniformities, and processes that are not easily scaled and (3) all methods have limited control of the optical properties of the film, specifically the refractive index. Synthesis of metal-oxide nanoparticles using the approach in this project is a promising, but under-examined and under-utilized, technique. It will generate unagglomerated nanoparticles of controllable size, overcoming the first challenge, and, with suitable aerosol deposition techniques, enable large-area uniform films with controllable refractive index, overcoming the second and third challenges.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目将开发一种用于金属氧化物纳米粒子气溶胶合成的新颖工艺和平台。当与现有的气溶胶沉积技术相结合时，这种气溶胶合成源将能够生产下一代功能涂层。其中包括用于太阳能模块的抗反射和自清洁涂层、减少太阳能电池中银用量的新型电触点，以及用于提高热效率的窗户热障涂层。其中每一个都代表了一个需要涂料创新的大型潜在市场：例如，镀膜平板玻璃市场预计到 2025 年将达到 $43.2B，而该项目的金属氧化物纳米颗粒涂料预计将占据该市场至少 10% 的份额。除了该项目的商业和相关社会影响之外，该项目还将增进对气相纳米材料成核以及随后在低压流中操纵纳米颗粒的科学理解。该项目的智力优势在于开发了一种在气相中合成金属氧化物材料的新方法，从而产生可以通过气流操纵并沉积在基材上的气溶胶。用于合成金属氧化物纳米颗粒和随后形成薄膜的现有技术面临三个挑战：(1)利用高压气相过程的合成方法往往会产生大的光散射团聚体，从而产生模糊的薄膜，(2)“湿式”合成涂层技术可能面临稳定性挑战、光学不均匀性以及不易规模化和规模化的过程。 (3)所有方法对薄膜的光学性质，特别是折射率的控制有限。使用该项目中的方法合成金属氧化物纳米颗粒是一种很有前景的技术，但尚未得到充分审查和利用。它将生成尺寸可控的未团聚纳米颗粒，克服第一个挑战，并通过合适的气溶胶沉积技术，实现折射率可控的大面积均匀薄膜，克服第二个和第三个挑战。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。