Preparation of hydrophobic fabrics and effect of fluorine monomers on surface properties

Liping Liang,Manuel J Lis Arias,Xu Meng,Zixuan Lou,Chang Ye,Qiaole Mao

doi:10.1177/1558925019889619

Abstract

Preparation of hydrophobic cotton fabric based on the self-assembly method was proposed. The cotton fabric was modified with 3-(methacryloyloxy)propyltrimethoxysilane and grafted with trifluoroethyl methacrylate and dodecafluoroheptyl methacrylate through free radical polymerization reaction. The objective of this research work was to investigate the effect of fluorine monomer with different chemical structure deposited on cotton fabric on the hydrophobic property. The chemical structure, surface topography, and surface wettability of the fabrics were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and water contact angle experiments, respectively. The results showed that the as-prepared fabrics exhibited water contact angle of above 140°. It was noticed that the fluorocarbon chain length of a modifier and its chemical structure could strongly affect the hydrophobic property of the modified fabrics, and the increase in fluorine atoms caused an increase in the water contact angle values.

Highlights

Cotton is a kind of favorable natural plant fiber material with various excellent properties of flexibility, environment friendly, biodegradability, low cost and density, and high mechanical stability.[1,2,3,4,5] This is due to its outstanding combined properties which is required in various applications.[6,7] its various applications were restricted due to the high hydrophilic property.[8]
The MPTMS-modified cotton fabrics were grafted with trifluoroethyl methacrylate and dodecafluoroheptyl methacrylate through free radical polymerization reaction, respectively
It is important to note that, in the case of fabrics modified with fluorinated compounds, the values of water contact angle (WCA) increased with increasing number of carbon atoms in the chain of fluorinated modifiers

Summary

Introduction

Cotton is a kind of favorable natural plant fiber material with various excellent properties of flexibility, environment friendly, biodegradability, low cost and density, and high mechanical stability.[1,2,3,4,5] This is due to its outstanding combined properties which is required in various applications.[6,7] its various applications were restricted due to the high hydrophilic property.[8]. In the present work, cotton fabric as the substrate was modified with 3-(methacryloyloxy)propyltrimethoxysilane (MPTMS) and grafted with trifluoroethyl methacrylate and dodecafluoroheptyl methacrylate through free radical polymerization reaction. The hydrophobic properties of the modified fabrics were correlated with their chemical structures. The influence of fluorine monomer with different chemical structure deposited on cotton fabric on the hydrophobic property was investigated.

Results

Conclusion