Miniemulsion copolymerization of styrene and butyl acrylate initiated by redox system at lower temperature: Reaction kinetics and evolution of particle-size distribution

✍ Scribed by He Huang; Hongtao Zhang; Fang Hu; Zhaoquan Ai; Bien Tan; Shiyuan Cheng; Jianzong Li

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 158 KB
• Volume: 73
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8995
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4628(19990718)73:3<315::aid-app2>3.0.co;2-4

✦ Synopsis

The kinetics of the miniemulsion copolymerization of styrene (St) and butyl acrylate (BA) initiated by redox initiators, (NH 4 ) 2 S 2 O 8 /NaHSO 3 , at lower temperature (45°C) was studied. The polymerization rate in miniemulsion copolymerization is lower than that of the corresponding conventional emulsion copolymerization. In regard to the rate of polymerization, the initiator concentration plays a more important role in miniemulsion copolymerization than in conventional emulsion polymerization, while the surfactant concentration has a more important role in conventional emulsion polymerization than in miniemulsion polymerization. These are attributed to their different nucleation mechanisms, which are the same as those found in the miniemulsion polymerization carried out at higher temperatures. While by eliminating nucleation via micelle and ensuring against homogeneous nucleation, miniemulsion polymerization can be carried out by the sole nucleation mechanism-monomer droplet nucleation-at lower temperature. Because of this, the particles become narrower during the polymerization and, finally, monodisperse polymer particles are obtained. The result of the particle numbers indicated that a continuous nucleation will cease at about 60% conversion.