EFFECT OF PARTICLE SIZE ON THE FILMING PROCESS OF POLYSTYRENE LATEX STUDIED BY AFM

The film formation process of micro-PS particles (diameter 742 nm) and nano-PS particles (diameter 29 nm) wasstudied by atomic force microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. During a step heating process, the particles wereannealed for 0.5 h at each selected temperature. It was found that the deformation and interdiffusion temperatures of themicro-PS particles are ca. 120-130℃ and 140-150℃, that of the nano-PS particles are 90℃ and 100-110℃ respectively.The DSC traces of nano-PS particles showed that there was an exothermic peak near T_g after annealing for 0.5 h at theselected temperatures below 90℃; otherwise, the exothermic peak disappeared after annealing at 100℃ or above. Comparedwith the micro-PS pedicles, the sintering process of nano-PS particles occurs at much lower temperature determined by theconfined state of polymer chains with higher conformational energy in nano-particles, and completes in a much narrowertemperature range driven mainly by the larger total surface energy.

EFFECT OF PARTICLE SIZE ON THE FILMING PROCESS OF POLYSTYRENE LATEX STUDIED BY AFM

 The film formation process of micro-PS particles (diameter 742 nm) and nano-PS particles (diameter 29 nm) wasstudied by atomic force microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. During a step heating process, the particles wereannealed for 0.5 h at each selected temperature. It was found that the deformation and interdiffusion temperatures of themicro-PS particles are ca. 120-130℃ and 140-150℃, that of the nano-PS particles are 90℃ and 100-110℃ respectively.The DSC traces of nano-PS particles showed that there was an exothermic peak near T_g after annealing for 0.5 h at the selected temperatures below 90℃ ;otherwise,the exothermic peak disappeared after annealing at 100℃ or above.Compared with the micro-PS particles,the sintering process of nano-PS particles occurs at much lower temperature determined by the confined state of polymer chains with higher conformational energy in nano-particles,and completes in a much narrower temperature range driven mainly by the larger total surface energy.