Synthesis, Phase-separation Behavior And Superhydrophobic Surface Of POSS-based Hybrid Acrylate Polymer

Scientists have always been inspired to conduct research on superhydrophobic surface by lotus effect since the effect mechanism was revealed. It has been reported that various kinds of micro-nano-binary morphology and thus superhydrophobic surface were constructured via numerous methods on different substrates. However, most of the preFAred superhydrophobic structure are poor in mechanical strength, leading to easily friction damage in practice application and thus loss of superhydrophobicity. After all, most of the prepared superhydrophobic surface cannot meet the demands of practical application. Althought a lot of interests have been put in field of POSS-modification study to organic polymer, POSS-based hybrid polymer are rarely employed to fabricate superhydrophobic surface. Therefore, it is quite meaningful to enrich the study and invertigate a simple and scale-up method to fabricate superhydrophobic and practical surface. This article includes the following aspects:Firstly, two-step ATRP process was employed to preFAre POSS-based hybrid diblock polymer. The structure of the polymer was characterizaed by FT-IR, 1H NMR and GPC. The results was in higly correspondence with the designed one, indicating the polymerization is living and controlled. XRD, TEM, and SEM were used to characterize self-assmbly behavior of the synthesized polymer in bulk, solution and film, respectively. The results showed that POSS would FArtially crystallize and aggregate in polymer bulk. Core-shell micelle would be formed in polymer solution, and the micelle size increased with increase of POSS content in polymer. Morever, POSS intended to aggregate towards film-air interface, forming nanoscale and white FArticles. The distribution density would increase with increase of POSS content in the polymer, but the aggregation size would firstly increase and then reach a balance. The aggregation would rough the surface and thus improve the hydrophobicity.Secondly, A phase-seFAration method was employed to fabricate rough surface by dip-coating the mixture of the synthesized diblock polymer(P) and PEG, and then suphydrophobicity was obtained after low-surface-energy modification. The effect of POSS content, P/PEG ratios, THF/AC(ethanol) ratios and the modification process on surface rough morphology was investigate. OCA, SEM and EDS were empolyed collectively to characterize the surface. The results showed that Honeycomb-like porous surface could be preFAred and the porous size could be decreased by increasing POSS content or P/PEG ratios ranging from micro scale to nano scale. The phase-seFAration behavior could be enhanced by AC, and the resulting surface could be rougher. The modificaion process could FArtially cover and shink the rough surface. When P/PEG is 50:50, THF/AC 7:3, the surface could have a water contact angle of 155.1° and sliding angle of 6.5°, demonstrating superhydrophobicity.Thirdly, a hydrophobic surface was preFArd by drop-coating POSS-based fluorinated copolymer PFA in ethyl acetate and F113 mixed solvent. TEM result showed the solution was in micelle situation. The effect of EA/F113 ratios on surface hydrophobicity was analysized adopting the characterization mehods of SEM, XPS, AFM, OCA. The results showed that the behavior of POSS aggregation onto film surface and organic phasese FAration bahavior could spontaneously occure at the same time, leading to binary roughness. POSS aggregation onto surface become less and less with increase of F113 content in mixed solvent, leading to the decrease of surface roughness, while fluronated group migration is contrary to that, resulting in much lower surface energy. After all, the surface hydrophobicity would rise up shraply at first, and then increase slowly with F113 content increase.Finally, the practical and superhydrophobic PFA film was fabricated by simply spraying the PFA solution with addition of ethyl cyanoacrylate(EAC). EAC could be in polymerization to enhance the film mechanical strength and adersion. The performance of the superhydrophobic surface in self-cleaning, sand abrasion, water pressure proof and transFArency was measured. The result showed that the suphydrophobic surface had a water contact angle of 158.1° and a sliding angle of 1.9°. the suface could withstand superhydrophobicity after 20 abrasion cycles under 1.8 KFA, under 5.5 m water pressure for 10 min, or after immersion in strong acid/base solution for 10 h. Morever, the light transmittance of the surface were all above 75%, indicating good see-through performance.