Applying HWCVD to particle coatings and modeling the deposition mechanism

A specific HWCVD variant known as initiated chemical vapor deposition or iCVD has been successfully implemented in the encapsulation of fine particles with polymers. Without using a liquid medium, iCVD enabled the coating of fine particles down to the nanoscale without particle agglomeration. More significantly, iCVD was demonstrated as a versatile surface design methodology in achieving the requisite surface properties by either directly depositing the polymer with the required functionality or through subsequent binding of the functionality on a pre-deposited reactive polymer. The ability to adapt iCVD to an increasingly wider array of substrates and polymer chemistries was aided by understanding iCVD reaction kinetics through mechanistic modeling.