Anomalous morphology as one of the stages in the formation of polystyrene particles during dispersion polymerization

Abstract

In this work, we have studied the growing mechanism of polystyrene microspheres with a small amount of cross-linking agent (0.2–2 wt%) during dispersion polymerization (DP) in 1-butanol in presence of PVP-40 steric stabilizer. Scanning electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering showed that particles take anomalous form at first several hours due to the growth predominantly by homo- and hetero-coagulation mechanism. The duration of the coagulation process is estimated to be of about a minute. Understanding of the mechanism of particle formation in the above systems will help to overcome the problem of irreproducibility, control the preparation of anisotropic particles during DP and extend the application of these particles.