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

具有成本效益的存款均匀的薄和超薄聚合物膜的能力将开辟广泛的潜在应用，如在运输行业的燃料过滤，这是本赠款申请的重点。现有的低成本湿化学路线，如浸涂和喷涂已被研究用于沉积聚合物薄膜到飞机燃油过滤器上，但成功有限。这些方法倾向于产生相当厚的膜。此外，它们往往是费力的，并且没有一个像在诺丁汉开发的可以获得薄和超薄膜的沉积工艺那样快速或控制良好。其他涉及真空沉积的方法，如蒸发、溅射和等离子体聚合，也可以生产薄/超薄薄膜。然而，昂贵的真空技术和/或昂贵的起始材料的使用使得它们对于这种应用是昂贵的、有问题的和不太商业可行的。该项目旨在证明，诺丁汉的新颖且具有成本效益的专利气溶胶辅助离子沉积（AAID）工艺可以在燃油过滤器上提供惰性且均匀的聚合物薄/超薄层，该层可以在模拟操作条件下主动拒绝碳氢化合物积聚，并具有所需的固有附着力、断裂韧性和耐磨性。确立AAID生产的聚合物薄膜在燃料过滤中的这种科学/技术优点对于释放这种想法的商业潜力至关重要，并且可以大大减少维修/大修周期的平均时间以及飞机和运输车辆的停机时间，从而节省大量成本。

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.