Synthesis of biocompatible and thermally sensitive poly(N‐vinylcaprolactam) nanogels via inverse miniemulsion polymerization: Effect of the surfactant concentration |
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| Authors: | Simone F. Medeiros Amilton M. Santos Hatem Fessi Abdelhamid Elaissari |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Laboratório de Polímeros, Departamento de Engenharia Química, Escola de Engenharia Química de Lorena—USP, Estrada Municipal do Campinho, s/n°, CP 116, 12602‐810, Lorena, SP, Brasil;2. Université de Lyon‐1, F‐69622 and Laboratoire d'Automatique et de Gé nie des Procédés, Université Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, CNRS, UMR 5007, Lyon, France |
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| Abstract: | The goal of this study was to develop a new route to prepare thermally responsive polymer nanogels. Poly(N‐vinylcaprolactam) nanogels were prepared via inverse miniemulsion polymerization (W/O) at 70 °C using n‐hexadecane as a nonpolar continuous phase, potassium persulfate as an initiator, and N,N′‐methylenebisacrylamide as a crosslinker. Sorbitan monooleate (Span 80) was used as surfactant and its influence on the polymerization kinetics and on the colloidal characteristics of the nanogels were principally investigated. It was observed that the addition of a strong “lipophobe” is required to stabilize the resulting miniemulsion. The nanogels were characterized in terms of morphology, size, zeta potential, and thermoproperties using transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. It was observed that all the nanogels obtained collapsed when the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) was raised. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 3932–3941, 2010 |
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| Keywords: | biocompatible biodegradable hydrophilic polymers inverse miniemulsion polymerization LCST microgels radical polymerization stimuli‐responsive polymers stimuli‐sensitive polymers surfactant |
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