New difunctional fluoro-epoxide monomers: synthesis, photopolymerization and characterization

New difunctional fluoro-epoxide monomers were synthesized starting by allylation of the corresponding fluorinated diols and subsequent epoxidation. The new products were photocured, in the presence of triphenylsulphonium hexafluoroantimonate as photoinitiator; a higher reactivity of the fluorinated monomers was evidenced with respect to a typical UV curable diepoxy resin, hexanedioldiglycidyl ether HDGE, and attributed to the lower nucleophihcity of the glycidyl oxygen in the presence of fluorinated structures. The fluorinated epoxides were also copolymerized with HDGE: completely hydrophobic surfaces were obtained with a selective enrichment of the fluorinated segments through the air surface.