A comparative study on the preparation and physical properties of environmental friendly PMMA-silica nano/sub-micron-scale hybrid latexes controlled by chelating agent

Abstract

In this article, a comparative study of the preparation and physical properties of as-prepared PMMA-silica nano-hybrid (PSN) and sub-micro-hybrid (PSM) latexes is successfully presented. Vinyl-modified silica spheres were prepared using the Stob er pro- cess with/without a chelating agent to control parti- cle size. The as-prepared vinyl-modified silica spheres with different particle sizes were subse- quently characterized by SEM, 13 C-solid-state NMR, and 29 Si-solid-state NMR spectroscopy. A certain feeding amount of silica spheres was reacted with MMA monomers by emulsion polymerization to yield a series of PSN and corresponding PSM. Both as-prepared nano/sub-micronscale hybrid materials were further characterized by FTIR, SEM-EDX map- ping, and TEM studies. The comparative study on the physical properties of both as-prepared nano/sub- micron-scale hybrid materials was done systemati- cally based on a series of instrumentation evalua- tions performed using a dynamic mechanical ana- lyzer, electrochemical corrosion measurements, salt spray test, and gas permeability analysis. Results indicated that PSN has more effectively enhanced mechanical properties, corrosion protection proper- ties, as well as gas barrier compared to PSM. POLYM. COMPOS., 32:1607-1616, 2011. a 2011 Society of Plastics