Synthesis and properties of a novel UV-cured fluorinated siloxane graft copolymer for improved surface, dielectric and tribological properties of epoxy acrylate coating

A novel functional fluorinated siloxane graft copolymer bearing with vinyl end-groups was synthesized from dihydroxypropyl-terminated poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), dicarboxyl terminated poly(2,2,3,4,4,4-hexafluorobutyl acrylate) oligomer (CTHFA), 2,4-toluene diissocyanate (TDI) and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA). The chemical structure was characterized by FT-IR and GPC. The effect of concentration of the vinyl-capped fluorosilicone graft copolymer (Vi-PFSi) on the surface, thermal properties, dielectric and tribological properties of UV-cured films was investigated. Contact angles and surface energies showed that the high hydrophobic and oleophobic surfaces were obtained by incorporation of Vi-PFSi at very low amount (0.5 wt%). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) evidenced that the fluorinated and siloxane moiety selectively migrated to the outermost surface of UV-cured film, thus reduced its surface energy from 45.42 to 15.40 mN/m2 without affecting its bulk properties. The morphology of fracture surface of modified film exhibited rough fracture surface only at the outermost surface, revealing fluorinated and siloxane groups migrated toward air-side surface. The dielectric constants decreased from 5.32 (1 MHz) for bisphenol-A epoxy methacrylate (EMA) to 2.82 (1 MHz) for modified film when the Vi-PFSi copolymer concentration increased from 0 to 0.8 wt%. Tribological results from abrasion tester suggested that the Vi-PFSi could obviously reduce the abrasion weight loss of modified films.