Influence of surface fluorination on surface wetting property of epoxy resin and its mechanism

The hydrophilic surface of epoxy resin (EP) after surface fluorination was a mystery and confused scholars for a long time. To reveal the underlying mechanism of fluorination enhancing surface affinity to water, the fluorinated EP was constructed, and the surface wetting property and chemistry was studied by experiment. Meanwhile, the molecular dynamics calculation was conducted and the hydrophilic groups in EP and fluorinated EP was clarified. It was found that only O-C = O was the hydrophilic group for EP, while for fluorinated EP, these were OCO, CF and CF2. The fluorination introduced CF and CF2 groups contributed to an enhanced affinity of EP surface to water and led to a hydrophilic surface of epoxy resin after surface fluorination.