Preparation, characterization, and application of hollow nano-TiO2@modified graphene/fluorinated copolymer nanocomposite leather finishing agents

A novel nanocomposite leather-finishing agent (denoted as H-TiO2@SDS-rGO/F-PBMA) composed of fluorinated copolymer (denoted as F-PBMA) matrix using methyl methacrylate (abbreviated as MMA), butyl acrylate (abbreviated as BA) as well as acrylic acid (abbreviated as AA) as monomers and H-TiO2@SDS-rGO composite nanoparticles as nano-additives were successfully fabricated by aqueous emulsion polymerization in this paper. The hollow TiO2 nanoparticles (denoted as H-TiO2) were firstly prepared with tetrabutyl titanate as titanium source wall and tetraethyl silicate as silicon source core through an alkali etching method, and then they were compounded with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) modified by sodium dodecyl sulfate (denoted as SDS-rGO) for obtaining H-TiO2@SDS-rGO composite nanoparticles. Fourier transform infrared spectra, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectra, scanning electron microscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectra were used to characterize the structure and morphology of different samples. The experimental results reveal that the nanocomposite leather-finishing agent not only has excellent transparency, but also endows sheepskin better weather resistance, thermal stability, hydrophobicity and mechanical properties compared with traditional leather finishing agents.