Optimization of New Spray Technique for Hybrid Sol-gel Coatings for Biotechnological Purposes: Preliminary Deposition Study

S. A. OMAR; A. BOUCHET; S. PELLICE; V. BALLARÍN; S. M. CERÉ; J. BALLARRE; J. I. PASTORE

IFMBE Proceedings

Springer

Año: 2015; p. 445 - 448

The use of metals such as stainless steel for biotechnological purposes have several disadvantages. The media where they are used are full of aggressive agents (bacteria, harmful ions, etc) and also cannot be bioactive (biocides or bone inductors, for example). So the strategy of apply a protective/functionalized coating is of great importance. The application of an hybrid organic-inorganic sol gel made coating could be done by several techniques. For replacing the typical dipping deposition method and to help to cover non geometric large surfaces, the spray technique could be used. The spray or pulverization technique requires the optimization of several variables including gun tip openness, sol pressure, carrier, distance to the substrate target, etc., so it is of great importance to have tools to analyze the spray performance of the deposited substance on the target. The optimization of the cover power of the gun shot, image processing techniques, in particular Fuzzy Mathematical Morphology (FMM) is presented as an efficient tool. In this paper we propose to apply FMM techniques to quantify the cover area of a coated surface by spray technique, measuring the profile deposition area from the completely cover surface (center of the spry ace gun), to the edge of the spray cone. From analyzing the cover fraction of the spray from the center to out the shot, some important data can be obtained to make multiple spray deposition in complex surfaces geometries.