Abstract
The preparation of highly ordered colloidal architectures has attracted significant attention and is a rapidly growing field for various applications, e.g., sensors, absorbers, and membranes. A promising technique for the preparation of elastomeric inverse opal films relies on tailored core/shell particle architectures and application of the so-called melt-shear organization technique. Within the present work, a convenient route for the preparation of core/shell particles featuring highly fluorinated shell materials as building blocks is described. As particle core materials, both organic or inorganic (SiO2) particles can be used as a template, followed by a semi-continuous stepwise emulsion polymerization for the synthesis of the soft fluoropolymer shell material. The use of functional monomers as shell-material offers the possibility to create opal and inverse opal films with striking optical properties according to Bragg’s law of diffraction. Due to the presence of fluorinated moieties, the chemical resistance of the final opals and inverse opals is increased. The herein developed fluorine-containing particle-based films feature a low surface energy for the matrix material leading to good hydrophobic properties. Moreover, the low refractive index of the fluoropolymer shell compared to the core (or voids) led to excellent optical properties based on structural colors. The herein described fluoropolymer opals and inverse opals are expected to pave the way toward novel functional materials for application in fields of coatings and optical sensors.
Highlights
Fluor-containing polymers represent a unique class of functional materials combining different interesting properties, and such polymers have attracted significant attention in the recent past.Some of these properties are their remarkable resistance toward chemicals, high thermal stability, wetting behavior, and repellent capabilities, as well as their low refractive indices compared to other polymer materials [1,2,3]
We report for the first time the incorporation of fluoropolymers into core/shell particle architectures, which can be advantageously used for the melt-shear organization technique
The following chapter is divided into six sections, starting with the design of fluorine-containing core/shell particles, followed by the preparation of opal and inverse opal films based on these particles by application of the melt-shear organization technique
Summary
Fluor-containing polymers represent a unique class of functional materials combining different interesting properties, and such polymers have attracted significant attention in the recent past. Some of these properties are their remarkable resistance toward chemicals, high thermal stability, wetting behavior, and repellent capabilities, as well as their low refractive indices compared to other polymer materials [1,2,3]. The control and understanding of surface properties is crucial for the development of advanced materials with well-defined wetting properties Such so-called smart surfaces have already been used in applications such as self-cleaning surfaces, tunable optical lenses, lab-on-chip systems, microfluidic devices, and many different textile applications [9,10,11,12,13,14]
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