Water and oil repellent composition

Abstract

A water and oil repellent composition having excellent durability, which can impart excellent water and oil repellency to an object, even in a process at low temperatures, and which enables water and oil repellent treatment providing a soft hand. A water and oil repellent composition which comprises, as an essential component, a copolymer containing polymerization units of the following monomer (a) and polymerization units of the following monomer (b): monomer (a): an Rf group-containing monomer which forms a photopolymer having no melting point or a melting point of at most 55° C. attributable to fine crystals derived from the Rf groups and having a glass transition point of at least 20° C. monomer (b): a monomer having no Rf group and having a cross-linkable functional group.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to a water and oil repellent composition. The water and oil repellent composition of the present invention can develop excellent water and oil repellent performance even in a process at low temperatures, and further, is excellent in durability to abrasion, washing, etc. which is required for some types of substrates, and therefore the initial water and oil repellency can be maintained. BACKGROUND ART [0002] As a technique for imparting water and oil repellency to the surface at the same time, it has been common to treat an object with an organic solvent solution or an aqueous dispersion of a polymer containing polymerization units of a polymerizable monomer containing a polyfluoroalkyl group (hereinafter, a polyfluoroalkyl group will be referred to as an Rf group) in its molecule (hereinafter, such a monomer will be referred to also as an Rf monomer) or a copolymer of such a polymerizable monomer with additional monomers (hereinaf...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0024] Further, the present invention provides a water and oil repellent composition, which comprises, as an essential component, a copolymer containing at least 30 mass % and less than 80

Problems solved by technology

However, since an Rf group-containing crystallizable polymer is used as the main component, the following demerits resulting therefrom have not been fundamentally overcome.

However, if a crystallizable Rf group-containing monomer is used, the entire polymer will have high crystallinity attributable thereto, and accordingly, an object coated or treated with such a polymer becomes very hard.

For example, intrinsically soft fiber products may lose their soft hand, and since the coating film is hard and brittle, defects such as hand marks and chalk marks formed during handling the object tends to remain on raw fabrics as the finished products.

Further, there has been a demerit that the water and oil repellency is initially high right after the treatment with a water and oil repellent is high, but tends to extremely deteriorate by abrasion during the use or by repeated washings.

Further, there are problems such as insufficient adhesion of the coating film on the surface and vulnerability to cracks and fractures which deteriorate the quality of the object, and therefore, it has been desired to overcome such problems.

However, in the case of fiber products made of materials such as extrafine-denier fibers or modified cross-section fibers, such a high temperature treatment causes problems such as deterioration of color fastness, hard hand or fading, and therefore can lower the quality of treated objects.

However, in such a case, there are problems such as failure to development of water and oil repellency, insufficient coating film strength, inadequate adhesion to the substrate or deterioration of the durability because the crystals derived from Rf groups for development of water and oil repellency are partially destroyed.

Further, there has been a problem that on a surface treated with a water and oil repellent having a crystalline polymer as an active component, the adhesion and the hand are not satisfied at the same time.

It has been difficult to secure sufficient adhesion because the crystallizable Rf groups impair the adhesion.

Use of a copolymer of a crystallizable Rf group-containing monomer and a specific monomer such as vinyl chloride may improve adhesion, but it tends to make the hand of fibers still harder, and thus, the adhesion and the hand have not been satisfied at the same time.

However, conventional water and oil repellents having a crystalline polymer as an active component are not friendly to the working and global environments, because they need to use a so-called strong solvent such as an aromatic solvent, a ketone or an ester, a chlorinated solvent or a fluorinated solvent such as a chlorofluorocarbon having a great influence on the ozone layer.

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