Abstract
Barrier performance to water vapor permeation of ceramic coated layers deposited on flexible polymer films is of great interest to food packaging, medical device packaging and flat panel display industries. In this study, a new type film in which a ceramic layer is deposited on a polymer coated film was proposed for lower water vapor permeation.
It is important how to control interfacial properties between each layer and film for good barrier performance. Several kinds of polymer coated materials were prepared for changing surface free energy of the films before and after depositing the ceramic layer. The ceramic layer, which is composed of mixed material of SiO2 and Al2O3, was adopted under the same conditions. The following results were obtained;
1) Water vapor permeation is not related to the surface energy of polymer coated films,
2) After depositing the ceramic layer, however, a strong correlation is observed between the water vapor permeation and surface free energy.
3) The phenomenon is considered that the polarity of the polymer layers plays a key role in changing the structure of ceramic coated layers.
