CHALLENGES IN PREDICTING AND CONTROLLING PARTICLE MORPHOLOGY IN LATICES OF COMMERCIAL COMPLEXITY

Independent, quantitative models for free energy associated with cross linked seed latices, and monomer and surfactant at the polymer/water i nterface have been integrated into a predictive model for latex partic le morphology. It has been found that very low levels of crosslinking are predicted to influence the particle morphology in a dramatic fashi on. Free energy calculation also highlight the often critical role pla yed by surfactant. Highly active surfactants tend to equalize the two polymer/water interfacial tensions and allow the polymer/water interfa cial energy to significantly influence the particle morphology.