Preparation of UV-Curable Low Surface Energy Polyurethane Acrylate/Fluorinated Siloxane Resin Hybrid Coating with Enhanced Surface and Abrasion Resistance Properties

Abstract

Low surface energy coatings have gained considerable attention due to their superior surface hydrophobic properties. However, their abrasion resistance and sustainability of surface hydrophobicity are still not very satisfactory and need to be improved. In this work, a series of utraviolet (UV)-curable fluorosiloxane copolymers were synthesized and used as reactive additives to prepare polyurethane acrylate coatings with low surface energy. The effect of the addition of the fluorinated graft copolymers on the mechanical durability and surface hydrophobicity of the UV-cured hybrid films during the friction-annealing treatment cycles was investigated. The results show that introducing fluorosiloxane additives can greatly enhance surface hydrophobicity of the hybrid film. With addition of 2 wt.% fluorosiloxane copolymers, the water contact angle (WCA) value of the hybrid film was almost tripled compared to that of the pristine PU film, increasing from 58 • to 144 • . The hybrid film also showed enhanced abrasion resistance and could withstand up to about 60 times of friction under a pressure of 20 kPa. The microstructure formed in the annealed film was found to contribute much to achieve better surface hydrophobicity. The polyurethane acrylate/fluorinated siloxane resin hybrid film prepared in this study exhibits excellent potential for applications in the low surface energy field.Especially, some pioneering studies demonstrated that the robust and self-healing ability of the fluorinated materials contribute significantly to the performance of superhydrophobic coatings. For example, Lin et al. [15] prepared superhydrophobic fabrics under 12 KPa and 28,000 cycles of abrasion with wool felt by using a fluoroalkyl silane and crosslinked polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Their results showed that the water contact angle of the fabrics remained above 150 • , indicating that the superhydrophobic surface character was retained. They also utilized fluorinated-decyl polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (FD-POSS) and hydrolyzed fluorinated alkyl silane (FAS) to prepare superhydrophobic fabrics, which still exhibited superhydrophobic surface even under ten plasma-and-heat cycles [16]. Zhang et al. [17] combined thiol-ene fluorinated siloxane (T-FAS) and hydrophobic fumed silica nanoparticles to prepare superhydrophobic coatings that could withstand approximately 100 abrasion cycles at 45 KPa [18]. It should be noted that, in these examples, the materials were surface-modified materials rather than pure fluoropolymers.Incorporation of fluorinated groups into acrylate copolymers could bring several desirable properties to the polyacrylate coatings. Depending on their chain length, the contribution of the introduced fluoroalkyl-containing moieties to the material surface properties can be tailored. If the molecular chain of the moieties are too short, they may be buried within the polymer matrix, thus mitigating their contribution [19]. In this aspect, Koji Honda et al. [9] studied the effects of side chain length on the molecular ag...

Synthesis and properties of trifluoromethyl organosilicon cycloaliphatic epoxy monomers for cationic photopolymerization

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Amphiphilic Surface‐Active Methacrylic Urethane Additives for the Design of Photopolymerized Coatings with Great Potential for Marine Fouling‐Release Applications

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