Solubility behavior of amphiphilic sulfonated copolymers based on styrene-stearyl methacrylate and styrene-stearyl cinnamate

摘要

Amphiphilic polymers have found many applications, so many types of these copolymers have been prepared. Specifically, sulfonated polystyrene acts, for example, as a flocullant or dispersant of petroleum asphaltenes as a function of its hydrophilic-hydrophobic balance. However, when changing the sulfonation degree, looking for the best performance, the solubility also changes, and sometimes it is responsible for making the polymer unsuitable for any application. Therefor, this work investigates in detail the changes in the solubility range of copolymers based on styrene-stearyl methacrylate and styrene-stearyl cinnamate with different molar compositions and different sulfonation degrees. The copolymers were synthesized and characterized by H-1-NMR, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and elemental analysis. In the range of compositions analyzed, with increasing content of long hydrocarbon chains, not only the displacement of the solubility in solvents with lower solubility parameter (), but also the broadening of the solubility range was observed. In general, the solubility was directly related to the sulfonic group content, but there appeared to be an influence of the randomness of the sulfonation reactions along the chains. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.