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The introduction of fluorine compounds in the UV curable systems could be promising, because of their outstanding properties such as chemical and thermal resistance, optical and electrical characteristics. Moreover fluorinated structures can guarantee hydro- and oleo-phobicity, low surface tension and low friction, which are important characteristics of a coating. Fluorinated products are already proposed as protective films for the waterproofing of textiles, the production of electronic devices and the protection of optical fibers, leather, metals and paper. Moreover, for their antifouling properties, they are applied as paints for boats and any material to be used in water. In the case of architectural coatings, concrete, stone, wood and many other substrates are nowadays to be protected not only from deterioration caused by natural ageing but also from the graffiti attack: fluorinated resins have shown excellent performance, banishing the application of indelible vandalic marks. In previous works, we studied UV-cured coatings produced through a radical mechanism, based on fluorinated acrylic resins containing perfluropolyether chains. Then we investigated systems which contained low amount of fluoroacrylic additives: comparing a wide series of compounds, characterized by either a perfluoroalkylic chain or a perfluoropolyether segment with different length, we determined the influence of the monomer structure and its concentration on the films formation and on its final
properties and examined in deep the surface modification obtained. Another interesting class of photopolymerisable resins are cured via a cationic mechanism; The main types of resins include epoxy monomers, vinyl ethers and oxetanes. The additional advantages of this technique with respect to the radical mechanism are the absence of oxygen inhibition and low irritation and toxicity properties of the monomers employed. Few authors have investigated the cationic polymerization of fluorinated monomers: fluorinated oxetane systems were studied by Karam et aI. and Malik et aI. The cationic polymerization of 1 H,1 H,2H,2H-perfluorooctyl vinyl ether is reported by Vandooren et aL inititated by 2 system which gives rise to living polyvinylethers bearing a fluoroalkyl side group. The present work reports the main results obtained by investigating different UV curable cationic systems in the presence of properly designed fluorinated co-monomers; a correlation of the obtained properties with the molecular structures of the fluorinated products will be drawn.
