ENHANCEMENT OF MATERIALS SURFACE PROPERTIES VIA SURFACE COATING PROCESS: POLYMER SUBSTRATE IN SILICA SAND BATH

n industry today, polymer is an important substance that been used since it has versatile characteristics, easy to process and low cost of production. However some mechanical properties such as strength and hardness are low. Therefore, in order to change the mechanical properties, the polymer had been modified by using several methods. One of them is thin film coating. This study of Enhancement of Materials Surface Properties via Surface Coating Process: Polymer Substrate in Silica Sand Bath aimed to introduce new concept of thin film coating using silica sand bath.
The method used in this study is by using silica sand bath to form the coating on the polymer. For this study, polypropylene was used as the sample. The polypropylene was immersed in the silica sand. The silica sand was put into the pocket of a ceramic which is brick clay then it was closed with another clay brick. The working temperature is 170°C and it took 4 hours to conduct the experiment. The results were compared by observed the microstructure of the sample using optical microscope by using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM).
Based on the results obtain, we can see the different in both testing. The optical microscope shows the shiny surface of the polypropylene which indicates the presence of silica sand. The FESEM testing indicates the image of rough surface of the sample which shows the layer of the silica sand on the surface. The XRF analysis was also used to compare the composition of the surface and the composition of the common silica sand.
As a conclusion, the objectives of this study were achieved which are to establish a “new” technique of polymer coating using silica sand bath and to characterize and analyse polymer‟s surface properties after the coating process.