Preparation of Silicon-Based Hybrid Gels with POSS Additives and Their Application to LED Encapsulants

Abstract

Densely structured polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) was employed as an additive to enhance hardness of silicon-based hybrid gels for LED encapsulants. To improve the miscibility of POSS and polysiloxane resin, alkyl or oligosiloxane branches were introduced to POSS moiety. Platinum-catalyzed hydrosilylation reactions were used to attach branches of 1-decanol, 9-decen-1-ol, and vinyl-terminated oligosiloxane to the POSS molecules. Alkyl-branched POSSs (decyl-POSS and decenyl-POSS) were immiscibile with polysiloxane resin and generated gels with low transparency and low hardness values. On the other hand, oligosiloxane-branched POSS (Siloxy-POSS) showed good miscibility with polysiloxane resin to give gels with high transparency. However, the prepared gels did not show noticeable improvement in hardness compared to the gels without the POSS additive.