ABSTRACT
The cleaning of glass surfaces [1] precedes a variety of coating processes, ranging from silane-based sol-gel coatings, to adhesion promoting films, to conductive coatings such as ITO (indium tin oxide). These cleaning processes are generally designed to remove particles from the glass surface and to render it uniformly wetting. For most applications, it is desirable that this wettability be associated with the exposure of silanol groups at the glass surface. These exposed chemical functions form part of the glass substrate and they may be used to covalently graft silane-based coatings to the glass substrate [2].
