A novel organic-inorganic zwitterionic acrylate polymer for high-performance anti-fog coating

A novel organic-inorganic zwitterionic polymer was developed via free radical copolymerization using quaternary ammonium salt as hydrophilic monomer . The unique structure realizes the perfect compromise between the hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity. The chemical composition, the physical properties, the anti-fog characteristic and mechanism of the zwitterionic acrylate coating were investigated by FT-IR, UV-VIS spectrometry , XPS , AFM and water contact angle . After anti-fogging test under ultralow temperature at −40 °C, the resultant zwitterionic acrylate polymer displays high transparency of 91 %, significantly better than that of the bare PC board 21 %. AFM images and water contact angle test demonstrate that the hydrophilic (the soft) region is continuously distributed on the surface of SMA-H coating with smaller water contact angle of 10°, indicates better hydrophilicity and wettability . The organic-inorganic zwitterionic polymer endows the coating on polycarbonate (PC) substrate with excellent anti-fog/frost performance, good adhesion and stability (repeated use for 100 times) under wider temperature range (−40 ∼ 80 °C) of applications.