The novel inorganic/organic core-shell SiO2/P(MMA/BA/3FMA) nanocomposite for coating application is synthesized in this paper by seed emulsion polymerization, in which the inorganic phase is composed of nano-SiO2 modified by vinyl-trimethoxysilane (VMS) or gamma-methacryloxy propyl trimethoxylsilane (MPMS), and the organic phase is made of terpolymer by 2,2,2-trifluoroethyl methacrylate (3FMA), methyl methacrylate (MMA), and n-butyl acrylate (BA). The chemical structure of SiO2/P(MMA/BA/3FMA) is characterized by FTIR. The effect of surfactant polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)/octyl phenyl polyoxyethylene ether (TX-10), sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS)/TX-10 and sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) on the grafting ratio (GR) of VMS and MPMS, the dispersion of nano-SiO2 particles and the film properties of SiO2/P(MMA/BA/3FMA) are investigated by TGA, DLS, TEM, SEM, and XPS. The morphology variation and the particle size distributions of SiO2/P(MMA/BA/3FMA) with the content of surfactant and P(MMA/BA/3FMA) are characterized. It is found that MPMS is more effective than VMS in improving GR and the dispersion of nano-SiO2 particles. The surfactants are favor of gaining the higher GR in the multilayer grafted nano-SiO2, especially SDS/TX-10 for 17.6% GR. The morphology of SiO2/P(MMA/BA/3FMA) is controlled by the amount of SDS/TX-10 and P(MMA/BA/3FMA) as the core-shell particles, the stacked pomegranate seed with multicore and the multicore-single shell structure when w(MMA)/w(BA)/w(3FMA) = 1.3/1/1. Among the different surfactants, SDBS/TX-10 and PVP could give the monodispersing nano-SiO2 in the terpolymer matrix of the films, but SDS/TX-10 and SDBS/TX-10 could perform the fluorine-rich surface. Crown Copyright (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.