Challenges in the development of reliable silicone elastomer coatings

Silicone elastomers are materials with good thermal and oxidation stability, flexibility, hydrophobicity, and low surface energy. Due to these properties, they find use in broad range of applications in electronic, medical, automobile, aerospace and many other industrial fields. In this work, focus is paid to the use of condensation curing silicone elastomers as protective coatings. The curing conditions of the condensation curing silicone elastomers make them interesting for many industrial applications compared to the addition curing silicone elastomers, which usually require high temperature curing as well as expensive platinum catalysts. Nevertheless, numerous side reaction during the condensation curing network synthesis can take place and contribute to post-curing effects, which then negatively influence both mechanical properties and stability of the coating. Proper choice of the condensation curing silicone elastomer components and their concentrations is therefore important in order to design reliable and stable silicone elastomer coating.