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Miniemulsion polymerization via membrane emulsification: Exploring system feasibility for different monomers

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Abstract

Membrane emulsification using pore sizes of 100 and 800 nm in conjunction with miniemulsion polymerization has been investigated for monomers with varying water solubilities, namely, styrene, n-butyl methacrylate (nBMA), benzyl methacrylate (BzMA), and n-butyl acrylate (nBA), and compared with previous work on methyl methacrylate (MMA). The O/W interfacial tension is an important parameter for 100 nm pore size (but less so for 800 nm pore size) — increasing O/W interfacial tension leads to an increase in membrane emulsification time as well as increases in the monomer droplet size and particle size. The most nonpolar monomer styrene required impractically long emulsification times. For the other monomers, the miniemulsions were polymerized by radical polymerization, resulting in monomodal particle size distributions. Overall, the results demonstrate that membrane emulsification in tandem with miniemulsion polymerization is a convenient method for synthesis of well-defined polymer nanoparticles of various monomers in the approximate size range 200–3500 nm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cluster for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD), School of Chemical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, High Street Gate 2, Kensington, Sydney, NSW, 2033, Australia

    Nida Nauman, Cyrille Boyer & Per B. Zetterlund

  2. Department of Polymer and Process Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, G.T. Road, Lahore, Punjab, 54890, Pakistan

    Nida Nauman

  3. Australian Centre for Nanomedicine, The University of New South Wales, High Street Gate 2, Kensington, Sydney, NSW, 2033, Australia

    Cyrille Boyer

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  1. Nida Nauman
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Nauman, N., Boyer, C. & Zetterlund, P.B. Miniemulsion polymerization via membrane emulsification: Exploring system feasibility for different monomers. Colloid Polym Sci 300, 309–317 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-021-04918-2

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