Production of Scratch-resistant Transparent Hydrophobic Nano-coating to Improve the Performance of Polycarbonate Police Equipment

The use of lightweight and durable equipment in various missions has always been important to the police commandment. Among these common equipments polycarbonate equipment can be mentioned. The low scratch-resistance of polycarbonate has limited the applications of this equipment. Nowadays, researchers and engineers have proposed the method of coating polycarbonate equipment with nanocomposite coatings to confront with this limitation.

In this research, two-component polyurethane resin was used in conjunction with restored graphene oxide to design nanocomposite coating. Polyurethane nanocomposite coatings lack nano particles and containing 0.5 and 1% wt. of restored graphene oxide were applied on the polycarbonate sheet by the spray method. The surface properties of the applied coatings were measured by pencil-hardness, cross-cut adhesion tests and measuring the contact angle of water droplet on the surface, and were compared with the properties of the commercial nano-ceramic coating.

The scratch-resistance of polyurethane nanocomposite coatings containing 0.5% and 1% wt. of restored graphene oxide and commercial nano-ceramic coating was measured as 3H, 4H and 3H, respectively, and the adhesion of all coatings was measured as 5B. The commercial nano-ceramic coating showed The contact angle of 102±4 degrees and the polyurethane coating containing 0.5% wt. of restored graphene showed the contact angle of 96±4 degrees.

Taking into account of the favorable surface properties of the polyurethane nanocomposite coating containing 0.5% wt. of restored graphene oxide, and the available technical knowledge, ease of implementation, and cost-effectiveness of expenses, this coating was introduced as a suitable option to improve the performance of polycarbonate police equipment.