Preparation and properties of UV-curable waterborne comb-like (meth)acrylate copolymers with long fluorinated side chains

A novel waterborne UV-curable comb-like (meth)acrylate graft copolymer containing long fluorinated side chains (UVWCAC) was synthesized by conventional radical copolymerization of a novel mono-methacryloyloxy terminated fluorinated macromonomer (PHFBMA-GMA) and (meth)acrylate monomers. GPC, FTIR and 1 H NMR were employed to characterize the structure of the polymers. The influence of both the molecular weight and concentration of PHFBMA-GMA on the properties of UV-cured films was investigated. Hydrophobic surface could be obtained with just small amount of PHFBMA-GMA copolymerized into the polymer. The surface energy of UV-cured films decreased as both the concentration and the molecular weight of PHFBMA-GMA increased. The surface composition of the graft copolymer was characterized by XPS. XPS results confirmed the enrichment of the fluorine atoms on the surface quantitatively. In addition, the physical properties of UVWCAC UV-cured films, such as gel content, water absorption, pencil hardness, adhesion, chemical resistance, mechanical properties, optical transmittance and thermal properties were also investigated in detail. The novel UVWCAC prepared via conventional radical polymerization not only had excellent properties but also had the prominent potential application in large scale industrialization.