FLUOROPOLYMER DISPERSION TREATMENT EMPLOYING OXIDIZING AGENT TO REDUCE FLUOROPOLYMER RESIN DISCOLORATION

1 . Process for reducing thermally induced discoloration of fluoropolymer resin polymerized in the presence of hydrocarbon surfactant wherein all of the monovalent substituents on the carbon atoms of the hydrocarbon surfactant are hydrogen and wherein said fluoropolymer resin has an initial thermally induced discoloration value (L i ) about 20 L units below the L value of equivalent fluoropolymer resin of commercial quality manufactured using ammonium perfluorooctanoate fluorosurfactant, said process comprising:

polymerizing fluoromonomer in an aqueous dispersion medium in the presence of said hydrocarbon surfactant to form aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion having a raw dispersion particle size of 10 nm to 400 nm; exposing said aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion to oxidizing agent; isolating said fluoropolymer from said aqueous medium to obtain said fluoropolymer resin; and post-treating said fluoropolymer resin comprising exposing said fluoropolymer resin after isolation to oxidizing agent to provide an improvement over the reduction of thermally induced discoloration provided by exposing said aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion to oxidizing agent.

2 . The process of claim 1 wherein said process reduces thermally induced discoloration by at least about 10% as measured by % change in L* on the CIELAB color scale.

3 . The process of claim 1 wherein said oxidizing agent is an oxygen source.

4 . The process of claim 5 wherein said oxygen source is selected from the group consisting of air, oxygen rich air, ozone containing gas and hydrogen peroxide.

5 . The process of claim 1 wherein the solids content of said dispersion during said exposing to oxidizing agent is about 2 weight % to about 30 weight %.

6 . The process of claim 1 wherein the reduction of thermally induced discoloration measured by % change in L* on the CIELAB color scale provided by said post-treating in combination with exposing the aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion to oxidizing agent is at least about 10% greater than the % change in L* on the CIELAB color scale provided by only exposing the aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion to oxidizing agent under the same conditions.

7 . The process of claim 1 wherein said post-treating comprises exposing wet fluoropolymer resin to an oxygen source during drying.

8 . The process of claim 12 wherein said post-treating comprises exposing wet fluoropolymer resin to ozone containing gas during drying.

9 . The process of claim 1 wherein said oxidizing agent for exposing said aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion to oxidizing agent is carried out using oxygen source and exposing of said aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion to oxygen source is carried while exposing said aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion to light in the presence of photocatalysts.