Cs. Chern et Lj. Wu, Kinetics of the microemulsion polymerization of styrene with short-chain alcohols as the cosurfactant, J POL SC PC, 39(6), 2001, pp. 898-912
Citations number
29
Categorie Soggetti
Organic Chemistry/Polymer Science
Journal title
JOURNAL OF POLYMER SCIENCE PART A-POLYMER CHEMISTRY
The kinetics of styrene microemulsion polymerization stabilized by sodium d
odecyl sulfate (SDS) and a series of short-chain alcohols (n-CiH2i+1OH, abb
reviated as CiOH, where i = 4, 5, or 6) at 60 degreesC was investigated. So
dium persulfate was used as the initiator. The microemulsion polymerization
process can be divided into two intervals: the polymerization rate (R-p) f
irst increases to a maximum at about a 20% conversion (interval I) and ther
eafter continues to decrease toward the end of the polymerization (interval
II). For all the SDS/CiOH-stabilized polymerization systems, R-p increases
when the initiator or monomer concentration increases. The average number
of free radicals per particle is smaller than 0.5. The molecular weight of
the polymer produced is primarily controlled by the chain-transfer reaction
. In general, the reaction kinetics for the polymerization system with C4OH
as the cosurfactant behaves quite differently from the kinetics of the C5O
H and C6OH counterparts. This is closely related to the different water sol
ubilities of these short-chain alcohols and the different concentrations of
the cosurfactants used in the preparation of the microemulsion. (C) 2001 J
ohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.