Morphology and microstructure of core-shell hybrid latexes containing fluoropolymer and acrylic copolymer

Novel core-shell hybrid latex composed by two immiscible polymers has been prepared. For the first time, we utilized fluoropolymer (FKM-40) as the core while polyacrylates as the shell in this latex, leading two immiscible components mixable under micro-molecular scale. To determine the chemical structure, in particular the miscibility between the core and the shell in this hybrid, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy and FTIR imaging have been performed. All experiments indicate that FKM-40 mixed well with polyacrylates, particularly FTIR image demonstrated unambiguously that FKM-40 dispersed, under micro-molecular scale, in continuous polyacrylates at a concentration of 20%. Further morphology (X-ray diffraction) investigations suggest that the hybrid latex had a less crystalline domain for samples with a lower concentration of FKM-40. Interestingly, we found that the water contact angle and the water absorption of the core-shell hybrid can be readily adjustable by varying the proportion of each species during copolymerization. Finally it is worth mentioning that the core-shell methodology as demonstrated herein is superior to physical blending with regard to its capability of achieving copolymer system under micro-molecular miscibility.