Polystyrene spheres have been synthesized using potassium persulphate (KPS) as initiators without using any surfactant or stabilizing agent. Simple mixing method was used to synthesize styrene monomer into polystyrene spheres. The influences of mixing time, ammount of styrene monomers, and ammount of initiators were studied in this research. Size measurement and its distribution were analyzed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Monodisperse spheres and verry narrow size distribution are expected in this research. The results showed that the most optimum time to synthesize styrene monomer into polystyrene latex is 6 hours, where biggest and most uniform spheres size were obtained. Meanwhile when ammount of styrene monomers were increased, the diameter of polystyrene spheres were also increased. The biggest and most uniform polystyrene spheres diameter was shown by 14% volume ratio of styrene monomer. For initiators influence, the smaller diameter of polystyrene spheres were obtained for 0.2 gram KPS than in 0.05 gram KPS. Polystyrene spheres using 0.05 gram KPS also has more uniform size than in 0.2 gram.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.