화학공학소재연구정보센터
Journal of Applied Polymer Science, Vol.51, No.12, 2073-2086, 1994
Monomer-to-Water Ratios as a Tool in Controlling Emulsion Copolymer Composition - The Methyl Acrylate Indene System
A drifting copolymer composition as a function of conversion is an aspect typical of co-polymerization. Reducing this so-called composition drift in batch copolymerizations will lead to a decrease in chemical heterogeneity of the copolymers formed. For monomer systems in which the more water-soluble monomer is also the more reactive one, theory predicts that composition drift in emulsion copolymerization can be reduced or even minimized by optimizing the monomer-to-water ratio. The monomer combination methyl acrylate-indene (MA-Ind) meets the requirements needed to minimize composition drift in batch emulsion copolymerization. Therefore, this monomer combination is chosen as a model monomer system in order to verify this theoretical prediction. Reactivity ratios needed for model predictions have been determined by low conversion bulk polymerization, resulting in r(MA) = 0.92 +/- 0.16 and r(Ind) = 0.086 +/- 0.025. Furthermore, emulsion copolymerization reactions at the same monomer mole fraction are performed at different monomer to water ratios. From the good agreement between experiments and theoretical predictions for MA-Ind, it was concluded that control and even minimization of composition drift in batch emulsion copolymerization for monomer systems in which the more water-soluble monomer is also the more reactive one is indeed possible by changing the initial monomer-to-water ratio of the reaction mixture provided that the reactivity ratios of both monomers are not too far from unity.