In order to decrease the erosion of kapton in exposure to atomic oxygen, the polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) is polymerized with the polyimide.POSS is a cage containing silicon and oxygen which is surrounded by organic groups.In order to investigate the surface chemistry of this material in exposure to space atomic oxygen, a computational chemical evaluation of the Kapton polyimide and POSS cage is performed in separate simulations under similar conditions. These simulations were performed using ReaxFF reactive force field.The simulations show that the organic material degrades before the silicon-oxygen structure. During Kapton oxygen bombardment simulation,the initial gas-phase species are dominated by carbon monoxide, while lower quantities of formaldehyde, O2 and OH-radicals are observed, together with a wide range of larger Kapton degradation products. While for the silicon-oxygen oxygen bombardment, the initial gas phase products are light silicon oxides and later, heavier silicon oxides and silicon appear as the gas phase.

Reactive molecular dynamics simulation on the disintegration of kapton and silicon-oxygen compound in kapton-poss during oxygen bombardment

244th National Meeting (2012)

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