Anti-Fog Coatings for Spacesuit Helmets

The purpose of this Phase-II project is to continue optimizing the anti-fogging coating developed in Phase-I and begin commercializing the coating for use on NASA spacesuit helmets and other applications, such as consumer eyewear. In Phase-I a permanent and robust anti-fog coating was developed that is applied to the interior of polycarbonate spacesuit helmets. The coating is a mechanically resilient and permanent superhydrophilic layer produced by a two-step process consisting of a plasma processing pre-treatment followed by the deposition of an optically transparent diamond like carbon coating to achieve an anti-fog layer with Water Contact Angle lt; 10 degrees.nbsp; The all-dry vacuum process consists of an oxygen plasma etching to engineer the surface of the polycarbonate, creating a well-controlled nanotextured morphology, which is key to the superhydrophilic properties, followed by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of the diamond like carbon coating with high surface energy.nbsp; The process is carried out at low temperatures compatible with polycarbonate materials and the two steps are performed back-to-back without breaking vacuum between steps.nbsp; The process is readily scalable and compatible with large scale production volumes.nbsp; The anti-fogging coating was tested for gt; 200 hours exposure using a breath simulator with no detrimental effect on the coating performance.nbsp; The coating was also tested for exposure to cleaning fluids, IPA chemical exposure, adhesion testing per ASTM D3359, and abrasion resistance per MIL-C-48497 with no detrimental effects.