Synthesis and characterization of fluorine-containing polyacrylate latex with core-shell structure by UV-initiated seeded emulsion polymerization

A coreshell fluorine-containing polyacrylate emulsion was successfully prepared by UV-initiated seeded emulsion polymerization in two stages in the presence of two photoinitiators. The water-soluble photoinitiator for the core polymerization and the oil-soluble photoinitiator was used for the shell polymerization. Both of the two stage polymerizations could be completed within 15min and displayed a conversion above 94%. The emulsion and the films were characterized by Fourier transformed infrared spectrometry, transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), contact angle (CA), and thermogravimetry analysis, respectively. The analysis results indicated that the fluorine-containing latex particles had very small particle size (40?nm) with a coreshell structure and a narrow particle size distribution. XPS analysis revealed that a gradient concentration of fluorine excited in fluorine-containing emulsion film from the filmair interface to the filmglass interface. In addition, the film formed from the fluorine-containing emulsion exhibited not only higher thermal stability but also better hydrophobicity than that of the fluorine-free emulsion. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.