Self-crosslinked Fluorinated Acrylic Copolymer with Improved Stability

Researchers for fluorinated acrylic copolymer latexes have long been puzzled by the relatively poor stability which due to the tremendous polarity difference between the fluorine-containing and the fluorine-free acrylic monomers. A self-cross linked fluorinated acrylic copolymer with improved stability was synthesized from methyl methacrylate (MMA), butyl acrylate (BA), diethylene glycol diacrylate (DEGDA, cross linker) together with functional monomers, methacrylic acid (MAA), 2-hydroxy ethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and hexafluorobutyl methacrylate (HFMA) via seed emulsion polymerization. The structure of the copolymer was characterized by FT-IR. Thermal behaviour of the resulting copolymer was investigated by DSC and TGA. The analysis results indicated that both the polymerization stability and the fluorinated co polymeric latex stability were improved when a fluorinated nonionic surfactant was added during the polymerization process. Only one glass transition temperature (Tg) was observed for the fluorinated copolymer.