Morphological characterization of the core–shell latex particle by transmission electron microscopy and image analysis

Abstract

AbstractTo describe the morphology of the core–shell latex particle of methyl methacrylate–butadiene–styrene graft copolymer (MBS) quantitatively, we propose four parameters, that is, the diameter of the core, the shell thickness (TH), the roundness of the core, and the eccentricity (E); we calculated these parameters with geometrical parameters determined by the analysis of transmission electron microscope images. The mean values and distributions of the four parameters based on a certain amount of particles were used for quantitative characterization of MBS latex samples. With increasing monomer‐to‐polymer ratios of the graft polymerization, both the MBS TH and the numbers of homopolymer particles increased, and the core–shell morphology tended to be irregular. For the MBS latices derived from poly(styrene–butadiene) latex with a wide distribution of particle sizes, the core–shell structures of the larger particles were different from those of smaller ones to a certain extent, and both the TH and the E decreased with increasing core size. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 89: 855–861, 2003