Strategies to incorporate a fluorinated acrylate monomer into polymer particles: from particle morphology to film morphology and anticorrosion properties

Four strategies to incorporate a fluorinated monomer (perfluoro octyl acrylate, POA) into a waterborne polymeric dispersion are investigated. Due to the very low water solubility of the POA monomer, three of the strategies use miniemulsion droplets containing the whole POA monomer in the initial charge. The rest of the comonomers of the formulation (methyl methacrylate, MMA, and n-butyl acrylate, BA) are partially incorporated in the initial miniemulsion or fed to the reactor as a preemulsion. In the fourth strategy, a conventional seeded semibatch emulsion polymerization is carried out using cyclodextrin in the seed and feeding the POA/MMA/BA preemulsion to the reactor. Each process strategy led to a distinct particle morphology and hence a particular film morphology. We found that the strategy that produced core-shell particles with the core composed by pure polyPOA yielded the films that showed the best corrosion protection as measured in salt-spray test (1200 h standing without damage).

Automated summary

This study investigates four strategies for incorporating a fluorinated monomer into a waterborne polymeric dispersion, and finds that the strategy of using miniemulsion droplets containing the whole monomer leads to the best film morphology and corrosion protection.