title: 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.
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan, 250022, P. R. China. xzkong@ujn.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xiang Zheng
authors.initials: XZ
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.forename: Xiang Ling
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Xiaoli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Lina
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang