Innovative and cost-effective deposition of PTFE protective thin films onto fuel filters

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The ability to deposit uniform thin and super thin polymer films cost-effectively will open up a wide range of potential applications such as in fuel filtration for transport industries which is the focus of this grant application. The existing low-cost wet chemical routes such as dip coating and spraying have been investigated for the deposition of polymer thin films onto aircraft fuel filters with limited success. These methods tend to produce fairly thick films. Moreover, they tend to be laborious and none of these are as rapid or as well controlled as the deposition process developed at Nottingham which could achieve thin and super thin films. Other methods involving vacuum deposition such as evaporation, sputtering and plasma polymerisation can produce thin/super-thin films. However, the use of expensive vacuum technology and/or expensive starting materials makes them costly, problematic and less commercial viable for such application. This project aims to demonstrate that Nottingham's novel and cost-effective patented Aerosol Assisted Ion Deposition (AAID) process could provide an inert and uniform polymer thin/super thin layer onto fuel filters that could actively reject hydrocarbon build up under simulated operating conditions, and with the desired inherent adhesion, fracture toughness and wear resistance. Establishing such scientific/technical merits of AAID produced polymer thin films in fuel filtration is pivotal to unlocking the commercial potential of this idea, and can greatly reduce the mean time to repair/overhaul period, and aircraft and transport vehicles down-time, which results in substantial cost saving.