Surface Modification of UV-cured urethane acrylate coatings by addition of fluoro or silicone acrylic monomers

During the last decade, great progress has been achieved in the chemistry of radiation-curable
systems. Their use as a means of protecting surfaces by a fast drying process has been widely
accepted in many industrial fields such as graphic arts, coatings, microelectronics, and composites. The control of surface properties such as surface tension, slipperiness, chemical and abrasion resistance in UV-curable systems has created many new manufacturing and formulating challenges.  In this paper, we report a recent work on the influence of the introduction of silicone and fluoro-acrylate monomers on the surface properties of four UV-curable urethane formulations, particularly their effect on contact angle and slipperiness. These additives serve two functions. First they reduce the surface tension of liquid formulations and second they lower the surface free energy and thus improve release properties (such as increase slipperiness, chemical resistance and reduce the Even at very low concentrations, they are able to deeply change the film surface by selectively enrichin9 its outermost layers depending on the monomer structure, its concentration and the curing It is therefore important to know how the presence of these reactive additives will affect the kinetics of the polymerization of different UV-curable urethane acrylate formulations. This influence was investigated by means of FTIR ant ATR infrared spectroscopy.