Synthesis and applications of vegetable oil-based fluorocarbon water repellent agents on cotton fabrics

Vegetable oil-based fluorocarbon water repellent agents were prepared by chemical modifications of different vegetable oils – soybean and linseed oils through several reactions, including saponification, acidification, acylation of vegetable oil and trans-esterification with 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol and 2,2,3,3-tetrafluoropropanol. The resulted fluorocarbon agents were then copolymerized with styrene. The structures of the vegetable oil based agents were characterized by FT-IR and NMR. By evaluating water contact angle and time of water disappearance on cotton fabrics, as well as whiteness and breaking strength of cotton fabrics that were treated by these agents, optimum fabric finishing conditions were explored. The cotton fabrics finished with the vegetable oil-based fluorocarbon agents showed excellent water repellency, while other properties of the cotton fabrics declined to certain level. The linseed oil-based tetrafluoropropanol water repellent agent displayed the highest water repellency among all modified oils. All the treated fabrics exhibited good durability of water repellency. The linseed oil-based tetrafluoropropanol water repellent agent demonstrated the best durability among all repellent agents.