Synthesis Of Acrylic Acid Emulsion Containing Fluorinted Short Chain Acrylate Monomer Ester And Its Application On Cotton Fabrics

With the development of people's living standard, the serviceability and functionality of textiles become the focus of interest. The after-treatment on textiles becomes one of the most important ways to improve the extra value and multi-function of the products, for example, it is further known that fluoropolymers derived from fluorinated alkylacrylate which is widely used can provide water-and oil-repellency properties to the substrate. However, from an environmental aspect, it would now be desirable to avoid the use of compounds that have fluorinated long chain alkyl groups. It has been found difficult to exclude residual low molecular weight compounds that have fluorinated long chain alkyl groups. Since the compounds have recently been environmentally objected to, it would be desirable to avoid their use completely and to find an alternative finishing agent treating on the textile substrates, water-and oil-repellent. Accordingly, a fluorinated short chain acrylate monomer which was copolymerized with other non-fluorinated acrylate monomers through the emulsion polymerization to obtain a stable emulsion was designed and synthesized in this paper. And cotton fabric finished with this emulsion had a good behavior of water repellence. The synthesis of this fluorinated short chain acrylate monomer is outlined as follows.The emulsion polymerization was used to copolymerize the monomers of fluorinated short chain acrylate, octadecyl acrylate and 2-ethoxyl acrylate and in order to obtain a stable emulsion; OP-10 and SDS were emulsifying agents, APS as initiator in this paper. The influences of polymerization conditions, such as concentration of emulsifying agents and initiator, time of reaction on stability of polymerization and conversion were studied, as a result all the polymerization conditions were optimized. The size distribution and morphology of particle were measure by Malvern2000 and the surface compositions and properties of the latex films were characterized by FTIR.The effect of different functional group of the copolymer and the condition during the finishing process on water contact angle of the cotton fabric finished with the emulsion was inspected. The change of external geometry morphology of the fabric before- or after-treated was shown by SEM which explained the water repellence property of textile after-treatment. The whiteness, tensile strength, breaking tenacity and air permeability properties were tested as well to optimize the condition during finishing and to decide the dosage of the fluorinated copolymer. The fabric finished by the emulsion was water, tea, milk, grape wine, coffee and man-made blood resistant, which can satisfy most of our daily needs.