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Highly crosslinked micron‐sized, monodispersed polystyrene particles by batch dispersion polymerization, Part 1: Batch, delayed addition, and seeded batch processes
Author(s) -
Lee KiChang,
Wi HanAh
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.31118
Subject(s) - polymerization , polystyrene , monomer , materials science , dispersion polymerization , polymer chemistry , emulsion polymerization , styrene , chemical engineering , particle size , absorption (acoustics) , particle (ecology) , polymer , copolymer , composite material , oceanography , engineering , geology
The seeded batch dispersion polymerization with or without monomer absorption was compared with the batch polymerization and delayed addition by batch polymerization, to prepare the highly crosslinked, monodispersed polystyrene (PS) particles. The seeded batch polymerization was carried out under the variation of styrene (in second stage)/styrene (in PS seed) (St/St) ratio, divinylbenzene (DVB) concentration, and polymerization temperature using 1.9‐μm monodispersed PS seed particles. The experimental results imply that the seeded batch process is more efficient method that could avoid the sensitive particle nucleation step in the presence of the crosslinker than the batch and delayed addition processes. Without monomer absorption, 2.3‐μm uniform crosslinked PS particles with 7 wt % of the DVB were prepared in 1/1 (St/St) ratio. In comparison, with the monomer absorption, monodispersed and smooth‐surfaced PS particles containing 20 wt % of the DVB were formed. A total of 5% weight loss of the crosslinked PS particles determined by TGA occurred from 353.8 to 374.8°C, and the degree of swellability in toluene decreased from 150 to 104.5% with increasing the DVB concentration from 5 to 20 wt % because of the increase of the crosslink density of the particles. The seeded polymerization, especially through monomer absorption procedure, is a novel way to obtain highly crosslinked, monodispersed PS particles. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010