Emulsion Polymerization and Its Applications in Industry

Abstract

There is a large body of Soviet work on emulsion polymerization, spanning a period of over three decades, that has been published primarily in the Russian language. Most of this has remained untranslated into English and hence unavailable to most other scientists. The value of this book lies primarily in the fact that it brings together the most important of these Soviet contributions, along with comment and analysis by the authors, who may be considered among the foremost authorities in this field in the Soviet Union. But the hundreds of literature citations go far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union and serve as an excellent bibliography of the world literature on emulsion polymerization up to the time this book was written.The book covers both fundamental and applied aspects. In the former are included discussions of particle formation mechanisms, a comprehensive theory of emulsion polymerization, copolymerization of polar monomers, and particle morphology and its implications with regard to derived film properties. Among the applied aspects are discussions of continuous emulsion polymerization, both tubular reactors and continuous stirred tank cascades, and various aspects concerning the manufacture of some of the most important monomers, such as styrene, butadiene, vinyl acetate, methyl methacrylate, acrylonitrile, and chloroprene. This book will be an indispensable reference source for scientists who are entering the field as well as those who are experienced and who have wanted a ready access to this large body of literature.

An Advanced Approach on the Study of Emulsion Polymerization: Effect of the Initial Dispersion State of the System on the Reaction Mechanism, Polymerization Rate, and Size Distribution of Polymer-Monomer Particles

“…According to the hypothesis of the formation mechanism of PMP for homogeneous nucleation [27,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42], the formation of particles or macromolecules derived from the radicals who have reached the critical length (j ), where they lose solubility and precipitate in the aqueous phase. Further growth of the polymer particles dropped in the water is treated differently.…”

“…Later on, these ideas found their development in the investigations of Priest [35], Roe [36], Fitch and Tsai [39,40], Yeliseyeva [37,38], Christiansen [44], Ugelstad [27], Pepard [45] Wilkinson [46][47][48], Oganesyan [49][50][51], Tauer [52][53][54][55][56][57], etc.…”

“…According to the representations of micellar [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] and homogeneous [27,[35][36][37][38][39][40] theories of particles nucleation, the monomer droplets play the role of a reservoir from which the monomer in the polymerization process goes into growing PMP by the diffusion through the aqueous phase. Subsequent studies performed by Pravednikov, Gritskova, Taubman where σ12 is interfacial tension, dwp is the density of the dispersion medium, and E is the energy expended to move a unit mass of the medium [80].…”

“…The simulation of emulsion polymerization of styrene is the subject of many publications, in which the authors discuss the dependence of the kinetics of the process on the emulsifier and initiator concentration [130], the particle size distribution [127,[131][132][133][134], and the molecular mass distribution [135][136][137][138][139] and perform a complete simulation of the kinetic characteristics of the process [24,38,130,[140][141][142][143][144][145]. However, all these studies are based on the Harkins-Yurzhenko qualitative theory and disregard the participation of microdroplets in the formation of PMPs.…”

Emulsion Polymerization Mechanism

“…Generally, vinyl monomers are used in this type of polymerization such as acrylamide, acrylic acid, butadiene, styrene, acrylonitrile, acrylate ester and methacrylate ester monomers, vinyl acetate, and vinyl chloride [1] and many other vinyl derivatives [25]. Depending on monomer solubility in aqueous phase, there is three categories of typical emulsion polymerization monomers which comprise (1) monomers of high solubility such as acrylonitrile, (2) monomers of medium solubility as methyl methacrylate and monomers insoluble in aqueous phase such as butadiene and styrene [44]. …”