Branching and Crosslinking in Emulsion Polymerization

摘要

The seeded semibatch emulsion polymerization of butyl acrylate (BA) with allyl methacrylate (AMA) and butanediol diacrylate (BDA) was used to study the influence of the crosslinkers on the kinetics, branching and crosslinking density, gel fraction and sol MWD produced during the experiments carried out at 80℃ using potassium persulfate as initiator. Surprisingly, the most reactive crosslinker, BDA, produced the less crosslinked, branched and gel containing polymer. These results were explained with the help of a mathematical model in terms of cyclization reactions and diffusion controlled propagation and termination reactions.