Enhancing the hydrophobic properties of various commercial polymers through mixtures and coatings with a fluorinated diblock copolymer in low concentrations

In this work the ability of a fluoro-modified copolymer (SBF) derived from a chemically modified PS-b-PB1,2 [PS: polystyrene and PB1,2: poly(butadiene) with exclusively 100% 1,2-microstructure] is evaluated, since the fluoro-modified copolymer (SBF) showed enhanced hydrophobicity when compared with the neat diblock. The stiff fluoro-ligand of the side group leads to different chemical and physical properties, which characterized by various techniques. From contact angle measurements the SBF modified copolymer exhibited high contact angle (113.6°) and low surface energy (6.54 mN/m), which were increased further through thermal treatment, due to the orientation of the ligands. Additionally SBF used in mixtures and coatings in low concentration (maximum up to 2wt% for the PB segment in respect to the total mass) with commercial polymers in order, again, to evaluate the hydrophobic properties. For this purpose various copolymers such as the initial diblock precursor (SB1,2), commercially available triblock copolymer of the SBS type and a hydrophilic commercial homopolymer of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) were chosen. It was found that both contact angle and surface energy were improved significantly in all cases despite the very low amount of the SBF component in the final system for all mixtures and/or coatings.