Preventive Surface Treatment of Silicone Materials for Outgassing and Contamination Reduction in Space Application
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NN8.5.1
Preventive Surface Treatment of Silicone Materials for Outgassing and Contamination Reduction in Space Application Z. Iskanderova1, J. Kleiman1, R. Ng1, Y. Gudimenko1, and D. A. Kaute2 1 Integrity Testing Laboratory Inc., 80 Esna Park Dr., Units #7-9, Markham ON, Canada, L3R 2R7 2 Plasma Treat North America Inc., 2810-1 Argentia Road, Mississauga ON, Canada, L5N 8L2
ABSTRACT Contaminating films on spacecraft sensitive materials surfaces in many cases consist primarily of products resulting from the interaction of atomic oxygen with silicones. Necessity of a drastic reduction of the outgassing of volatiles and the following contamination has thus become a challenging problem. The effective surface conversion of space related organosilicone materials to oxide-based protective sub-surface layers under ground-based OpenAirTM plasma pre-treatment has been researched. Oxygen plasma asher testing and complementary surface analysis techniques have been used to assess the surface composition, bounding states and atomic oxygen resistance of the treated materials. It was shown that the application of this approach may essentially simplify the technological development to reduce or prevent contamination caused by silicone-coated space materials and structures.
INTRODUCTION Applications of organosilicone polymers as protective coatings have a long history and tradition. These polymers are clearly advantageous over their organic analogs in high thermal stability and resistance to environmental factors such as ultraviolet and atomic oxygen in space. At the same time, it has been found that contaminating films on aircraft sensitive materials surfaces in many cases consisted primarily of products resulting from the interaction of atomic oxygen with silicones [1,2]. In addition, extensive cracking of silicone surfaces returned from space missions or after ground-based oxygen-plasma testing had been identified [3]. The instability of silicones in space systems has recently become a strong barrier to their effective use as coatings, especially in long-term missions, despite many useful and sophisticated applications. Organosilicones manufactured by NuSil Silicone Technologies are specifically designed for applications requiring extreme low temperatures and wide temperature range, minimal outgassing, radiation resistance, and thermal stress resistance under extreme conditions of space environment [4,5]. The silicones of the study are selectively based on either dimethyl diphenyl silicone copolymers or phenyl silicone polymers [5]. These organosilicone polymers have been used to demonstrate the promising potential application of the ground-based OpenAirTM plasma [6] surface pre-treatment for potential enhancement of in-space durability and contamination prevention.
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EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS All organosilicones of the study have been manufactured and applied to both sides of space grade aluminum alloy substrates by NuSil Silicone Technologies, and supplied to ITL. Black and white colour pigments are introduced into some o
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