Synthesis of Hydrophilic-Lypophilic Copolymers in Emulsion: Initiation of Vinyl Chloride by Aqueous Soluble Polymeric Radicals at the Interface

The emulsion polymerization of vinyl chloride initiated by a redox pair in the presence of acrylamide in the aqueous phase gives a product which apparently corresponds to a block copolymer of polyacrylamide and polyvinyl chloride). A reaction scheme is proposed which involves the attack of the vinyl chloride in the micelles by a growing polyacrylamide radical, thus producing the hydrophilic - lypophilic copolymer. Isopropyl alcohol is used as a transfer agent to limit the size of the PAA chains growing in the aqueous phase. The reaction product was characterized by selective solvent extraction, elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy, and differential thermal analysis.