Miniemulsion polymerization of styrene using a pH-responsive cationic diblock macromonomer and its nonreactive diblock copolymer counterpart as stabilizers

The miniemulsion polymerization of styrene has been carried out using two pH-responsive cationic diblock macromonomers as reactive stabilizers. As a comparison, the analogous nonpolymerizable cationic diblock copolymer was also investigated. Each of these three stabilizers based on 2-(diethylaminoethyl)methacrylate and quaternized 2-(dimethylaminoethyl)methacrylate residues were prepared via oxyanionic polymerization and had relatively low polydispersities. It was found that all three copolymers were grafted to the polystyrene latex particles, as judged by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, aqueous electrophoresis and FTIR spectroscopy studies. Kinetics studies and colloidal characteristics indicated poorer stabilization properties of the partially quaternized diblock macromonomer and electron microscopy confirmed that the latexes invariably had relatively broad particle size distributions.