Trace permeation through barrier layers

高性能屏障膜可以防止大气中的氧气和水分，以及二氧化碳和乙烯等其他物质进入或离开它们所保护的材料和设备。检测这种屏障膜的分析设备是一个复合年增长率为20%的增长市场，预计到2020年将达到1.5亿美元。屏障膜市场分为食品和药品等的既定专业包装市场，价值15亿美元，以GDP增长率+5%的速度增长，以及塑料电子市场所需的新兴高增长超高性能屏障层，复合年增长率为80%，预计到2020年将达到30亿美元。为了达到所需的设备寿命=10年，需要水分渗透率小于106g /m2/day H2O的屏障层-这些渗透率目前超过了商用仪器可测量的大约100倍！这严重限制了这些市场超高性能屏障膜的发展！该项目将展示一种仪器，可以在几天而不是几周的时间尺度内测量渗透率到所需水平，从而实现超高性能屏障层的快速开发，并支撑新兴塑料电子市场的增长。该技术基于高灵敏度质谱仪检测器，利用真空和低丰度天然存在的稳定同位素（如d2o），将干扰背景水平降低许多数量级。预计将实现低于10.7 g/m2/day H2O的水分渗透率。质谱仪检测器同时监测多种物种的独特能力允许在同一仪器中根据特殊包装行业的要求同时对其他物种进行渗透测量；这减少了所需设备的数量，并提供了显著的竞争优势。

High performance barrier films prevent the passage of atmospheric oxygen and moisture,along with other species such as carbon dioxide and ethylene, to/from the materials anddevices they protect. The analytical equipment to qualify such barrier films is a growth marketwith a CAGR of >20% and projected to be >$150 million by 2020. The barrier film marketdivides between the established speciality packaging market for foods and pharmaceutical etc.at $1.5 billion, growing at GDP rates +5% and the emerging high growth ultra highperformance barrier layers required by the plastic electronics market with a CAGR of 80%and projected to be $3 billion by 2020. To achieve the required device lifetimes of =10 years,barrier layers with moisture permeation of less than 10 6 g/m2/day H2O are required – thesepermeation rates are currently beyond that measureable with commercially availableinstrumentation by approximately a factor of 100! This severely limits the development ofultra high performance barrier films for these markets!This project will demonstrate an instrument that can measure permeation rates to the requiredlevels but in a timescale of days rather than weeks enabling the rapid development of ultrahigh performance barrier layers and underpinning the growth of the emerging plasticelectronics markets. The technique is based on a high sensitivity mass spectrometer detectorand utilises vacuum and the use of low abundance naturally occurring stable isotopes e.g.D2O, to drive down interfering background levels by many orders of magnitude. It isanticipated that moisture permeation rates of less than 10 7 g/m2/day H2O will be achieved.The unique ability of a mass spectrometer detector to monitor multiple species simultaneouslyallows simultaneous permeation measurements of other species as required by the specialitypackaging industries in the same instrument; this reduces the quantity of equipment neededand gives a significant competitive advantage.