Abstract
(Meth)acrylic terpolymers carrying siloxane (Si), fluoroalkyl (F) and ethoxylated (EG) side chains were synthesized with comparable molar compositions and different lengths of the Si and EG side chains, while the length of the fluorinated side chain was kept constant. Such terpolymers were used as surface-active modifiers of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based films with a loading of 4 wt%. The surface chemical compositions of both the films and the pristine terpolymers were determined by angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AR-XPS) at different photoemission angles. The terpolymer was effectively segregated to the polymer−air interface of the films independent of the length of the constituent side chains. However, the specific details of the film surface modification depended upon the chemical structure of the terpolymer itself. The exceptionally high enrichment in F chains at the surface caused the accumulation of EG chains at the surface as well. The response of the films to the water environment was also proven to strictly depend on the type of terpolymer contained. While terpolymers with shorter EG chains appeared not to be affected by immersion in water for seven days, those containing longer EG chains underwent a massive surface reconstruction.
Highlights
The dispersion of non-reactive surface-active additives is generally regarded as a facile and straightforward method to modify the surface properties of a polymer film without affecting its bulk properties to a significant extent [1,2,3,4]
By alternatively changing the length of the siloxane and Synthesis of Terpolymers ethoxylated chains it was possible to modify the content of hydrophobic/hydrophilic co-units, that is Amphiphilic terpolymers with siloxane, and fluorinated and ability ethoxylated side surface chains the amphiphilic character, of thep(Si-F-EG)
Novel surface-active amphiphilic terpolymers composed of aacrylic backbone with fluorinated (F), ethoxylated (EG) and siloxane (Si) side chains were engineered with variable lengths of EG and Si chains for one given length of F chains to create chemically modified PDMS-based film surfaces within the outermost few nanometers
Summary
The dispersion of non-reactive surface-active additives is generally regarded as a facile and straightforward method to modify the surface properties of a polymer film without affecting its bulk properties to a significant extent [1,2,3,4]. In the field of coatings, surface-active additives have been utilized for several purposes, especially for the development of antifouling (AF)/fouling-release (FR) coatings to combat marine biofouling [12]. In this regard, reactive [22,23,24,25] and non-reactive amphiphilic copolymers [21,26,27,28,29] generally composed
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