Synthesis and surface properties study of novel fluorine-containing homopolymer and copolymers for coating applications

A novel fluorochemical methacrylate monomer CH2=C( CH3)CO(O)CH( CF2CF3)( CF( CF3)(2)) (2) containing short branched fluoroaliphatic groups is synthesized successfully from perfluoro ethyl isopropyl ketone. The homopolymer of 2 and copolymers of 2 and butyl methacrylate (BMA) with different fluorine contents are prepared. All the polymers have good thermal stability. A series of solutions of 3 wt% polymer in CCl2FCClF2 (R-113) are applied to clean coverslips. Properties of fluorinated polymer films are investigated. The results demonstrate that the homopolymer had excellent repellency properties which are slightly worse than that of polymers containing primarily straight-chain perfluorooctyl moieties but are better than that of polymers containing primarily straight-chain perfluorohexyl moieties. The water repellency decreases significantly when the fluorine content is less than 10% while the oil repellency decreases significantly when the fluorine content is less than 15%, thereby introducing BMA to copolymerize with 2 is a perfect method based on cost, solubility and performance standpoints. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.