LOW SURFACE ENERGY EPOXY NETWORKS OBTAINED BY MODIFICATION WITH FLUORINATED THERMOPLASTICS

GUADALUPE PAPAGNI; ELISABETH PENOFF; PABLO MONTEMARTINI; PATRICIA OYANGUREN

Los Cocos, Córdoba, Argentina

Congreso; Archipol '05. III Argentine-Chilean Polymer Symposium. VII Argentine Polymer Symposium. VII Chilean Symposium of Polymer Chemistry and Physical Chemistry; 2005

Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

Fluoropolymers have been the focus of extensive research in the development of novel materials because of their low surface energy, low wettability, and chemical stability (Stansbury and Antonucci, 1999; Bondiovanni et al., 1997; Rixens et al, 2005). On the hand, modification of epoxy resins is a possible approach in order to fulfill particular application requirements. In order to create a low surface epoxy-based materials is, therefore, unnecessary to have the costly fluorine in the bulk. The use of smart additives, which could migrate at the right place, provides an excellent opportunity to serve such a purpose that both bulk and surface properties can be well balanced. In this respect, only a very small quantity of fluorinated species is needed to obtained a surface with low energy. The fluorinated species, in comparison with other components in a mixture, have the tendency to migrate towards the air/film interface to minimize the interfacial energy. In this work we report a convenient way to synthesizing a thermally stable, thermoplastic, and hydrophobic polymer containing -CF3 groups. The fluorinated polymer (FP) was used to modify an epoxy matrix. The current work focuses on the temperature effects on the cross-linking between an epoxy resin and an aromatic diamine and on the wettability of the resulting materials. The associated thermal and electrical properties of the resulting materials are also discussed.