Abstract
Direct fluorination of polymers is a widely utilized technique for chemical modification. Such introduction of fluorine into the chemical structure of polymeric materials leads to laminates with highly fluorinated surface layer. The physicochemical properties of this layer are similar to those of perfluorinated polymers that differ by a unique combination of chemical resistance, weak adhesion, low cohesion, and permittivity, often barrier properties, etc. Surface modification by elemental fluorine allows one to avoid laborious synthesis of perfluoropolymers and impart such properties to industrial polymeric materials. The current review is devoted to a detailed consideration of wetting by water, energy characteristics of surfaces, adhesion, mechanical and electrical properties of the polymers, and composites after the direct fluorination.
Highlights
Fluorine-containing compounds have found a wide application in many fields of human activity.Despite a lack of natural organofluorines [1], industrial fluoroorganic derivatives are applied as specific medicines [2,3,4], agrochemicals [5], refrigerants [6], in the aerospace industry as materials with low densification temperature and high thermal stability (>300 ◦ C) [7,8], etc
It is pointed out that the fluorination does not affect the bulk properties of the polymeric materials touching upon their surface layers that are responsible for the adhesion characteristics
The treatment of common polymer-based materials with elemental fluorine was demonstrated to be the effective approach for chemical modification of their surface
Summary
Fluorine-containing compounds have found a wide application in many fields of human activity. Most of the mentioned properties of the perfluorinated polymers can be achieved when a thin, highly fluorinated layer covers polymeric materials. Such highly fluorinated covering can be formed via physical coating of the material [17] or its chemical treatment (polymer-analogous reactions). The current review of the direct fluorination of polymers does not cross the previous ones It supplements them by focusing on a detailed consideration of properties of the final fluorinated polymeric materials that were poorly discussed previously, namely adhesion and surface energy (Section 2), mechanical properties of the fluorinated polymers and composites (Section 3), and electrical properties (Section 4)
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