Small‐Particle High‐Solid‐Content Bimodal Latexes: Highly Crosslinked Small Particles as Pseudo‐Inert Nanofillers

High‐solid‐content low‐viscosity bimodal latexes with very small particles (<200 nm) are obtained using two emulsion polymerization approaches. In the first approach, the PSD is controlled by using highly crosslinked nanolatex particles (<30 nm) as seeds for the small mode to minimize their growth during the growth of the large mode. These particles are shown to grow at a volumetric rate that is 25 times lower than the larger particles. Latexes with 57 wt% solids content and viscosities <1400 mPa · s at 20 s^?1 are produced. The second approach is based on the re‐nucleation of the small particles by addition of a shot of surfactant in the presence of large particles to produce bimodal latexes. Latexes with 60 wt% solid content with viscosity of 490 mPa · s at 20 s^?1 are produced using this approach.