Miniemulsion polymerization of fluorinated siloxane-acrylate latex and the application as waterborne textile finishing agent.

ABSTRACT Fluorinated siloxane-acrylate polymer latex was synthesized via miniemulsion polymerization, which was carried out by pseudo one-step method. In the synthesis protocol, the monomers of octamethylclotetrasiloxane (D₄), tetravinyltetramethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D₄^v), methyl methylacrylate, butyl acrylate, N-methylol acrylamide, and dodecafluoroheptyl methacrylate (DFMA) were first mixed and homogenized into a miniemulsion, which was stabilized by dedecybenzene sulfonic acid. The ring-opening polymerization of cyclosiloxane was then steadily performed under miniemulsion conditions and followed by the postaddition of radical initiators to initiate the polymerization of acrylate and DFMA monomers. The influences on the emulsion properties by acrylic monomer with different addition protocol were investigated in this work. In addition, the synthesized latexes were characterized by using dynamic laser scattering, transmission electron microscope, differential scanning calorimetry, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. These results indicated that the introduction of D₄^v in the latex can successfully suppress the phase separation between the thermodynamically incompatible components for the formation of uniform hybrid latex particles. The further application of the as-synthesized latex was investigated as a new kind of waterborne textile finishing agent. Moreover, the influences of the content of D₄^v and DFMA on the finishing properties, especially for the softness, the water repellence, and the antimoisture properties, were systematically studied in this work. With a proper design on the content of the D₄^v and DFMA, stable textile finishing emulsion was prepared, which can endow the fabric both desirable softness and excellent water resistances. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 40161. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]