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Precipitation Polymerization in Ethanol and Ethanol/Water to Prepare Uniform Microspheres of Poly(TMPTA‐styrene)
Author(s) -
Kong Xiang Zheng,
Gu Xiang Ling,
Zhu Xiaoli,
Zhang Lina
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
macromolecular rapid communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.348
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1521-3927
pISSN - 1022-1336
DOI - 10.1002/marc.200800772
Subject(s) - precipitation polymerization , polymerization , monomer , styrene , tmpta , solvent , materials science , polymer chemistry , precipitation , bulk polymerization , chemical engineering , suspension polymerization , chemistry , copolymer , radical polymerization , organic chemistry , polymer , acrylate , physics , meteorology , engineering
The precipitation polymerization of styrene‐trihydroxymethyl propane triacrylate has been carried out using ethanol and an ethanol/water mixture as the solvent. Uniform microspheres with high monomer conversion are achieved within 4 h, a much shorter polymerization time than that reported for the precipitation polymerization of divinyl benzene‐styrene in acetonitrile. The results clearly demonstrate that use of water as a co‐solvent is indeed very effective to promote the polymerization to high conversion and to obtain uniform microspheres. With no water under the otherwise same experimental conditions, only about 57% of monomer conversion is obtained; while the monomer conversion is remarkably increased to 96% when 12 vol.‐% of water is used.