Investigation of Silicone Oil Leaching in PDMS Fouling Release Coating by Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope

The silicone oil leachate in fouling release coatings has very important effect on inhabitting marine organism on ships hull and releasing of biofouling from it. For observing and testifying the leaching phenomenon of silicone oil in PMDS fouling release coating, the coating was designed and prepared consisting of 107 silicone gum, dimethyl silicone oil, tetraethylorthosilicate as crosslinked curing agent, multi-walled carbon nanotube as filler, dibutyltin dilaurate as catalyst. The confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) LEXT OLS4000 was used to observe the morphology of the coating and silicone oil leachate. The results indicate that the dimethyl silicone oil can stably exist and distribute uniformly in PDMS coating. Regardless of between the coating and air or and seawater, silicone oil can leach on the interface. Silicone oil not only can leache faster on the interface between seawater and the coating than that between air and it, but also can easily form the continuous oil film because of the gravity of seawater.