Facile fabrication of waterborne polyurethane coatings with good hydrophobicity and antifouling properties by leveraging fluorinated polysiloxane

The unsatisfactory water and fouling resistance of waterborne polyurethane (WPU) coatings have significantly hampered their practical applications. Herein, a simple strategy to prepare a novel industrial WPU hydrophobicity and antifouling coating (FSiWPU) was employed. The FSiWPU coating was prepared by a facile polycondensation reaction to introduce hydroxyl-terminated siloxane fluoride (HTFSi) into polyether-type WPU. The study demonstrated that the coating material exhibited excellent hydrophobicity (with a water contact angle of 107.9°), water resistance (with a water absorption of 8.7 %) and considerable mechanical strength (35.6 MPa). More importantly, due to the surface enrichment of low-surface-energy HTFSi chain segments, the coating exhibited excellent antifouling and substrate shielding protection against various contaminating liquids and corrosive chemicals. The approach provided a promising candidate for the large-scale production and practical application of waterproof and anti-fouling waterborne polyurethane coatings. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.