Synthesis and dynamic de-wetting properties of poly(arylene ether sulfone)-graft-poly(dimethyl siloxane)

Many test liquids cleanly glide down crosslinked coatings bearing nanopools of a grafted liquid ingredient for dewetting enablement (NP-GLIDE coatings) at low substrate tilt angles. It was unclear if an engineering plastic with a high glass transition temperature Tg could replace a crosslinked coating matrix to support an NP-GLIDE coating. This paper reports the uniform grafting via click chemistry of liquid poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS) onto poly(arylene ether sulfone) (PAES, T-g = 185 degrees C) to yield graft copolymers PAES-g-PDMS with low polydispersity indices. Hexadecane droplets (5 mu L) cleanly glided down at sliding angles (SAs) of less than 3 +/- 1 degrees on all of the coatings prepared from PAES-g-PDMS with PDMS weight fractions of 3.4%, 19%, 30%, and 40%, respectively. Further, an oil-based ink readily contracted on them. The sliding angle of 15 mu L droplets decreased from 47 +/- 2 degrees to 13 +/- 1 degrees as the PDMS weight fraction increased from 3.4% to 30%. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.