Light-induced polymerization is an industrially viable process that offers numerous economic and technical advantages over conventional thermal polymerization, particularly toward the fabrication of crosslinked thermoset thin films.  These advantages include rapid through cure, low energy requirements, ambient temperature processing, solvent-free resin compositions, and spatial and temporal control over the polymerization process.  This presentation will focus on our group's recent efforts to use thiol-ene photopolymerizations to fabricate thin, crosslinked polymer networks containing functionality aimed at tailoring the surface chemical functionality and morphology of the films.  For example, the spray-deposition of nanoparticle-laden thiol-ene resins provide surfaces with hierarchical morphologies exhibiting both micro- and nanoscale roughness. The wetting behavior of such films can be tailored toward superhydrophobicity (anti-wetting with water) or superomniphobicity (anti-wetting with water and oils) by judicious choice of monomer constituents.  Beyond the simplicity offered by thiol-ene photopolymerizations, the cross-linked thiol-ene coatings are solvent resistant, stable at low and high pH, and maintain antiwetting behavior after extended exposure to elevated temperatures.

Thiol-ene photopolymerization:  A versatile route to functional polymer films

248th National Meeting (2014)

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