Abstract
PMMA has applications on the medical, pharmaceutical and engineering areas. Different processes may be employed for its production. Here, MMA polymerization was performed by supercritical carbon dioxide dispersion. CO2 is inert, easily retrievable and separated from the product. The monomer is soluble in dense CO2, unlike PMMA, requiring a stabilizer to maintain the dispersion. Here, vinyl terminated PDMS was used as a dispersing agent. The reactions were conducted at 16MPa/80°C for 4h. Product characterization was performed by SEM, to evaluate the morphology at estimate the particle size, SEC, to determine the molar mass and polydispersion index, 1H NMR and FTIR spectroscopy, in order to verify the chemical structure of the product, and also gravimetric analyses, to determine the residual monomer. The results confirmed the adequacy of the process and of the stabilizer for PMMA particles production.
Highlights
Poly(methyl methacrylate), PMMA, is a widely used polymer for engineering, medical and pharmaceutical purposes
The results obtained for the methyl methacrylate polymerization reactions by dispersion in supercritical CO2 and their product characterizations are presented and discussed
Results are in agreement with PMMA obtained using supercritical CO2 with similar systems elsewhere [2,4,5]
Summary
Poly(methyl methacrylate), PMMA, is a widely used polymer for engineering, medical and pharmaceutical purposes. Depending on the desired final application suspension, solution, emulsion, dispersion or bulk polymerization processes can be used to obtain PMMA. Except for mass/bulk polymerization and dispersion in scCO2, all the other techniques utilize water or organic solvents in the process. Studied systems consist of vinyl monomers, methyl methacrylate and styrene, in scCO2 [1,2,3,4,5,6,8]. For these applications, scCO2 dispersion polymerization can be used as a procedure to produce latexes, as well as spherical particles, representing a versatile polymerization system
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