Novel cationic polyurethane-fluorinated acrylic hybrid latexes: Synthesis, characterization and properties

The cationic polyurethane-fluorinated acrylic (PUFA) hybrid latexes were obtained from double bond-end capped polyurethane macromonomer having quaternary ammonium groups with perfluoroalkyl acrylate (FA) by radical copolymerization. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirmed that the FA monomer had been introduced into the chain of the PUFA hybrid polymer. Particle size distribution (PSD) analysis showed that the particle size of PUFA increased with the increase of the FA content. TEM indicated that the PUFA hybrid possessed core–shell structure. The analysis of the contact angles (CAs), XPS and atomic force microscopy (AFM) had shown that there was a remarkable enrichment of fluorine on the film–air interface, which was more evident when the PUFA hybrid film annealed at higher temperature. At the same time, the influences of the soft segment molecular weight, the N-methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) content and the FA content on other properties such as the surface tension of the PUFA latexes, the surface free energy of the PUFA films and the thermal properties were studied. The results showed that the MDEA content had contrary influence on latexʹs and filmʹs surface properties. Thermal stabilization usually brought by fluorine was not observed in our investigated systems.