Finishing of Silk Textile with Fluorinated Polyacrylate Latex and the Effect of Silicone Cross-Linking Bond in Copolymer on Hydrophobicity and Lipophobicity

Abstract

The lightly cross-linked fluorinated polyacrylate latex was synthesized by emulsion copolymerization, in which fluorine containing acrylate, butyl acrylate (BA) and organosiloxane containing bisacrylate were used as monomers. The fluorine containing co-polymeric emulsion was obtained with narrow particle size distribution and the average particle size to be about 130 nm. The emulsion with and without addition of cross-linking agent was applied on silk textile finishing. The result shows that, treating with the emulsion without cross-linking agent, the water-and oil-repellency of silk fabric reached level 3-4 and level 3, respectively, and the contact angle was up to 133.5°. After addition of cross-linking agent, the emulsion can afford the silk fabric with better water-and oil-repellency of level 4 and level 3-4, respectively. The improvement of water-and oil-repellency can probably be attributed to the lightly cross-linking structure of fluoropolymer, the latter resulted in more dense film on the surface of silk fabric after finishing.