• emulsion
• fluorinated
• miniemulsion
• RAFT

The purpose of this Master degree internship was to study and set-up different synthetic procedures for the preparation of aqueous colloidal dispersions of semi fluorinated, film forming and multifunctional polymeric particles. To obtain this result an acrylic monomer with a linear side chain, perfluorinated on the last 4 carbons, and therefore highly insoluble in water, was used. A further purpose of this study was to minimize the fluorinated monomer content while maintaining good amphiphobic properties of the final coating. Methodologies based on radical polymerization, conventional or controlled by ab initio RAFT technique, in emulsion and in miniemulsion, have been studied to obtain semifluorinated copolymers capable of generating internally nanostructured particles. In addition to the main structural characterizations (FTIR, 1H-NMR and 19F-NMR spectroscopies as well as TGA and DSC thermoanalythical techniques), the hydro- and oleophobic properties of the polymeric latex films have been studied by means of static and dynamic contact angle measurements on different substrates and with different solvents.