Freeze Drying of Organically Modified Layered Silicates as Key Step to Improve the Barrier Properties of Organic Coatings for High Power Electronics Protection

Organically modified layered silicates can be used as barrier pigments in organic coating systems to reduce the permeation of water vapor and gases, e.g., oxygen as well as harmful gases that promote corrosion. Unmodified layered silicates are not sufficient to reduce the permeation significantly. However, the arrangement and orientation of the particles have an enormous impact on the later performance in the barrier film. In organic solvents or non-aqueous polymer matrices the non-modified layered silicates cannot exfoliate adequately. The organic modification influences the layer spacing and the compatibility to organic solvents. Layered silicates are modified with dodecylamine to enhance the spacing layer. The spacing layer is enhanced by 55% caused by the organic modification as it is commonly known. In contrast to previous work freeze drying of the organically modified layered silicates improved the particle distribution and by this barrier properties significantly. The modified particles reduce the diffusion of water and oxygen by ≈99.6% and 97.2%, respectively. The corrosive gas test of electronic circuit boards shows no growth of dendrites and no failure of the electronics in contrast to protective coating without the layered silicates.