Preparation of poly(methyl methacrylate)/titanium oxide composite particles via in-situ emulsion polymerization

✍ Scribed by Mingjiao Yang; Yi Dan

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 105 KB
• Volume: 101
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8995
• DOI: 10.1002/app.23223

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/Titanium oxide (TiO~2~) composite particles were prepared via in‐situ emulsion polymerization of MMA in the presence of TiO~2~ particles. Before polymerization, the TiO~2~ particles was modified by the silane coupling agent, which is crucial to ensure that PMMA reacts with TiO~2~ via covalent bond bindings. The structure of the obtained PMMA/TiO~2~ composite particles was characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results indicate that there are covalent bond bindings between PMMA macromolecules and TiO~2~ particles. Based on these facts, several factors affecting the resulting PMMA/TiO~2~ composite system, such as the type of coupling agents, the mass ratio of the MMA to the modified TiO~2~, the emulsifier concentration, and the initiator concentration, etc., were examined by the measurement of conversion of monomers, the gel content of polymers, the percentage of grafting, and the grafting efficiency, using gravity method or TGA method. As a result, the optimized recipe was achieved, and the percentage of grafting and the grafting efficiency could reach 216.86 and 96.64%, respectively. In addition, the obtained PMMA/TiO~2~ composite particles were found to a stable colloidal dispersion in good solvent for PMMA. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 4056–4063, 2006