Preparation of novel methyl methacrylate/fluorinated silsesquioxane copolymer film with low surface energy

Random copolymers of methyl methacrylate and fluorinated polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (F-POSS) were synthesized and the corresponding thin films were prepared from solvent casting. Their microstructure was confirmed by ¹H NMR, elemental analysis and GPC. Separation occurs in the bulk of the film during solvent evaporation which can be evidenced by Transmission Electron Microscopy, TEM, with POSS-rich nanophase sizes from 20 to 50 nm. Nanostructuration is attributed to the self-assembly of F-POSS due to the cluster-cluster interactions resulting from the nature of their ligands, i.e., cycloaliphatic ligands and perfluorinated chains. Thermogravimetric analysis was used to investigate the thermal degradation temperature. It was shown that when F-POSS content is higher than 2.8 mol%, the incorporation of F-POSS could improve the thermal stability of PMMA significantly. In addition, it was shown that these fluorinated POSS-based copolymer surfaces could reduce the surface energy and could be used to design water-repellant nanocomposite coatings.