Preparation and optical properties of titania/epoxy nanocomposite coatings

Abstract This work reports the preparation of TiO 2 /Epoxy nanocomposites coatings with high refractive index and optical transparency. Highly dispersed titania nanoparticles were synthesized by sol-gel method at room temperature. The TiO 2 nanoparticles can be dispersed directly into the polymer without the use of organic surfactant. Nanocomposite coating with refractive index of 1.668 can be obtained by adding 30 wt% TiO 2 nanoparticles into the polymer matrix. All coatings with different amount of TiO 2 exhibit excellent optical transparency of more than 90%. Although higher refractive index of the nanocomposite can be obtained by increasing the content of TiO 2 nanoparticles, cracks also appear in the surface of the hybrid coating.