Precipitation polymerization in ethanol and ethanol/water to prepare uniform microspheres of poly(TMPTA-styrene)

Abstract

The precipitation polymerization of styrene-trihydroxymethyl propane triacrylate has been carried out using ethanol and an ethanol/water mixture as the solvent. Uniform microspheres with high monomer conversion are achieved within 4 h, a much shorter polymerization time than that reported for the precipitation polymerization of divinyl benzene-styrene in acetonitrile. The results clearly demonstrate that use of water as a co-solvent is indeed very effective to promote the polymerization to high conversion and to obtain uniform microspheres. With no water under the otherwise same experimental conditions, only about 57% of monomer conversion is obtained; while the monomer conversion is remarkably increased to 96% when 12 vol.-% of water is used. © 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.