Premium
The formation of asymmetric polystyrene/saponite composite nanoparticles via miniemulsion polymerization
Author(s) -
Tong Zhaohui,
Deng Yulin
Publication year - 2012
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.37737
Subject(s) - miniemulsion , polystyrene , materials science , saponite , composite number , polymerization , polymer , nanoparticle , polymer chemistry , composite material , emulsion polymerization , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , montmorillonite , engineering
The synthesis of asymmetric spherical nanoparticles has attracted great interest because their anisotropic structure can be used as unique building blocks for constructing advanced materials. In this article, we report the formation of hemispherical or truncated polystyrene/nanosaponite composite particles via one‐pot miniemulsion polymerization. It was found that the morphology of final composite latex particles strongly depends on the size of the nanoclay and its surface properties. Hemisphere or truncated sphere is the dominant morphology if the size of the nanoclay is larger than 100 nm. With the increase of the nanoclay content (up to 30 wt %), the fraction of hemispherical or truncated polystyrene/nanosaponite composite latex particles increased accordingly. The formation of hemispherical particles is possibly attributed to either the asymmetric growth of polymer chains on one side of the hydrophobically modified clay or the mechanical peeling‐off of large spherical particles between polymer and saponite. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013