A novel organic-inorganic zwitterionic acrylate polymer for high-performance anti-fog coating

A novel organic-inorganic zwitterionic polymer was developed via free radical copolymerization using quaternary ammonium salt as hydrophilic monomer. The unique structure realizes the perfect compromise between the hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity. The chemical composition, the physical properties, the anti-fog characteristic and mechanism of the zwitterionic acrylate coating were investigated by FT-IR, UV-VIS spectrometry, XPS, AFM and water contact angle. After anti-fogging test under ultralow temperature at −40 °C, the resultant zwitterionic acrylate polymer displays high transparency of 91 %, significantly better than that of the bare PC board 21 %. AFM images and water contact angle test demonstrate that the hydrophilic (the soft) region is continuously distributed on the surface of SMA-H coating with smaller water contact angle of 10°, indicates better hydrophilicity and wettability. The organic-inorganic zwitterionic polymer endows the coating on polycarbonate (PC) substrate with excellent anti-fog/frost performance, good adhesion and stability (repeated use for 100 times) under wider temperature range (−40 ∼ 80 °C) of applications.