Fabrication of ordered honeycomb amphiphobic films with extremely low fluorine content

• The honeycomb films of fluorinated copolymers are fabricated by breath figure technique.
• The influence of preparation conditions on the film surface features is investigated in details.
• Wetting behavior including hydrophobic property and wetting state of the films is explored.
• A facile approach to fabricate amphiphobic honeycomb film with extremely low fluorine content is presented.

A series of poly(methyl methacrylate)-block-poly(perfluoroalkyl ethyl acrylate) (PMMA-b-PFAEA) with various fluorine content were employed to fabricate honeycomb ordered films via breath figure strategy. The influences of temperature, concentration, relative humidity, fluorine content on the morphology of porous films were investigated. Wetting behavior including hydrophobic property and wetting state of the films was studied. High surface roughness from the porous structure and low surface free energy from the increasing PFAEA fraction led to the enhancement of hydrophobicity. Additionally, fabrication of porous films by the mixture of PMMA and PMMA-b-PFAEA was investigated. Ordered porous film with excellent hydrophobicity and oleophobicity was obtained with only 7 wt% of PMMA-b-PFAEA by simultaneous processes of breath figure mechanism and phase separation. This work facilitates our further comprehension of the mechanism of breath figure and contributes to the fabrication of porous film from fluorinated copolymers. Meanwhile, it opens a new route to prepare films possessing excellent hydrophobicity and oleophobicity with extremely low fluorine content.

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