A combined strategy of room-temperature plasma activation and chemical treatment to toughen the interfacial adhesion of fluoropolymers

A kind of tailored HB-functionalization for FPs has been proposed, which combines room-temperature plasma activation and subsequent chemical processing. Hydrogen-bonding interactions have been proved to toughen the interfacial adhesion in bulk states and in composites. Such improvement has been evaluated from both experimental measurements and molecular dynamics simulations. [Display omitted] •Tailored hydrogen-bonding functionalization of fluoropolymers has been realized.•Hydrogen-bonding motifs can toughen the interfacial adhesion of fluoropolymers.•The hydrogen-bonding interactions improve mechanical property for composites.•Such HB-functionalization method demonstrate tunability for interfacial adhesion. Fluoropolymers (FPs) have been widely applied as adhesives because of their desirable physicochemical stability and mechanical robustness in a wide range of working temperatures. However, their interfacial adhesion properties are limited due to the absence of strong binding motifs. Herein, hydrogen-bonding (HB) interactions have been incorporated into FPs to toughen their interfacial adhesion. A kind of tailored HB-functionalization for FPs has been proposed, which combines room-temperature plasma activation and subsequent chemical processing. The improvement of interfacial adhesion has been evaluated from both experimental measurements and molecular dynamics simulations. As a proof of demonstration, the interfacial adhesion strength between FPs and 1,3,5-trinitro-2,4,6-triaminobenzene (TATB) present an increase from 26 kPa to 45 kPa as a result of HB modification. The HB interactions have been proved to facilitate the mechanical strength enhancement for their composites, and an improvement over 20 % was observed for fracture strain, strength and modulus values. Therefore, HB interactions are effective to toughen the interfacial adhesion of FPs, and such tailored HB-functionalization method can be applied to various composite systems with tunable adhesion properties appreciated therein.