Novel water and oil repellent POSS-based organic/inorganic nanomaterial: Preparation, characterization and application to cotton fabrics

A series of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) based hybrid terpolymers P(POSS-MMA-(HFPO)(3)MA) were synthesized and characterized by NMR, FT-IR, GPC, DSC and TG. The thermal properties of these terpolymers were improved by the introduction of POSS cage. The cotton fabrics coated with these terpolymers possessed excellent water and oil repellency. The water and salad oil contact angle could be achieved from similar to 140 degrees to 152 degrees and from similar to 127 degrees to 144 degrees respectively as the content of POSS in the terpolymer increased from 6.4 wt% to 13.4 wt%. Compared with P(MMA-(HFPO)(3)MA) copolymer-coated cotton fabrics, POSS-based terpolymer coated cotton fabrics showed better oil repellency with a tendency of first increasing and then decreasing with an increase of the POSS content. The n-hexadecane (surface tension: 27.4 mN/m, 20 degrees C) contact angle reached similar to 117 degrees for coated cotton fabrics with terpolymer containing 9.5 wt% of POSS. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.