Chemical and Morphological Surface Modification of Epoxy Based Thermosets

Abstract

<p align="justify"> <span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:12px;">Recently developed low fluorine containing polymers are advanced materials which confer advantageous properties to surfaces at a lower cost than conventional fluoropolymers (like PTFE), and are also more easily processable. Fluoro</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:12px;">polymer surfaces are characterized by a low surface energy, high oleo and hydrophobicity, low coefficients of friction, among many other properties. This makes them desired materials in microelectronics, antifogging, antifouling and medical applications, to name a few. Fluorinated compounds are not easily coupled with macromolecules or common organic systems, and great efforts are made to compatibilize fluorinated species with hydrocarbon polymers. In this work, two chemical routes were explored in order to incorporate perfluorinated alkyl chains in an epoxy</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:12px;">-</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:12px;">amine based thermoset. On one side, a perfluoroalkyl thiolated molecule was used as a stabilizing ligand for silver nanoparticles, which were incorporated in the matrix polymer. On the other hand, fluorinated chains containing epoxy functionalities, were used as the matrix modifier. In the first case, fluorinated chains covering the nanoparticles, were mixed with the matrix, while in the second case, the fluoroalkyl chains were chemically linked to the network. Fluorine migration to the air</span><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';font-size:10pt;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:12px;">—</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:12px;">polymer interface was confirmed by X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The materials hydrophobicity was then studied in terms of their contact angle with water (CA), as a function of the surface composition and the topogra</span></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:12px;">phy. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), operated in moderate and light tapping modes, were used to morphologically describe the surfaces. An exhaustive surface analysis was made in order to ex</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:12px;">plain the different hydrophobicity grades found.</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family:'Times New Roman','serif';font-size:10pt;"></span> </p

Fluorinated‐polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (F‐POSS) functionalized halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) as an antifouling additive for epoxy resin

“…24 In the case of epoxy coatings, incorporation of multifunctional nanoparticles and engineering their surface chemistry was found to be a promising solution to poor surface properties. [25][26][27] A variety of nanoparticles possessing different surface and bulk properties are examined to develop organic nanocomposite coatings, where crosslinking state largely determined ultimate properties and performance features of tailored materials. [28][29][30] Overall, the lesson we learned was that selection and surface chemistry manipulation of nanoparticles seriously governs the surface properties of epoxy coatings.…”

“…The characteristic of a superamphiphobic surface is that it possesses an obtuse contact angles usually wider than 150° with minimum hysteresis resulting from the incorporation of low‐surface‐energy materials 24 . In the case of epoxy coatings, incorporation of multifunctional nanoparticles and engineering their surface chemistry was found to be a promising solution to poor surface properties 25–27 . A variety of nanoparticles possessing different surface and bulk properties are examined to develop organic nanocomposite coatings, where crosslinking state largely determined ultimate properties and performance features of tailored materials 28–30 .…”