Perfluorinated polymer surfaces comprising SF 5-terminated long-chain perfluoroacrylate

Abstract

A new perfluorinated acrylate monomer containing the SF 5(CF 2) 6-perfluorinated side chain was synthesized and polymerized into films. Bulk monomer characterization is consistent with the molecular structure based on FTIR, mass spectrometry and NMR analyses. The surface properties of polymer coatings were studied with aqueous wetting (contact angle) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) methods. The surface composition is shown to be highly enriched in the terminal side chain SF 5-chemistry and exhibits properties consistent with a highly apolar, non-wetting perfluorinated polymer surface. Depth-dependent XPS studies using angular-resolved methods (ADXPS) confirmed a non-stoichiometric enrichment of sulfur and fluorine at the film ambient interface, consistent with a surface presence of the terminal SF 5-group and possibly film structural anisotropy in the surface zone. Time-of-flight (TOF) secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) analysis supplements the XPS data by showing the presence of all expected SF 5-acrylate chemistry components in the outer 15 Å of the film surface.