Formation of polystyrene nanoparticles in ternary cationic microemulsions

Abstract

The polymerization of styrene has been studied in ternary microemulsions which were stabilized by tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide or octadecyltrimethylammonium chloride. The initiation of polymerization occurred mainly in the styrene-swollen microemulsion droplets, and the polymeric particles grew by recruiting monomer and surfactant from uninitiated droplets. The average hydrodynamic radius (Rb) of swollen particles first increased rapidly to a maximum at ∼4 or 7% conversion, and then decreased slowly to a constant value. The variation in size follows the trend as simulated by a recent thermodynamic model. Due to the continuous nucleation, the number of polymer particles and the polydispersity of particle sizes increased continuously throughout the course of the polymerization process. The low average number of free radicals per particle ( n ̄