Particle morphology development in hybrid miniemulsion polymerization

Incompatibility between polymer phases resulting from hybrid miniemulsion polymerization of acrylic monomers in the presence of alkyd resin leads to interesting particle morphologies. In this paper, morphology was deduced through cross-comparison of results from several forms of microscopy. For the combination of methyl methacrylate and alkyd, a derivative of core/shell morphology was observed through the combination of transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and spin diffusion NMR. A raspberry-like shell was found to form oil the hybrid particle surface consisting of a full coverage of small (roughly 25 nm) polymethyl methacrylate spheres anchored to the particle surface through grafting with the alkyd core. Migration of the spheres to that surface is thought to be induced by phase separation, and the size of the spheres precludes their origin from homoparticles from homogeneous nucleation. Homopolymethyl methacrylate particles were also detected in the particle distribution, resulting from file aqueous-phase initiator and hydrophilicity of methyl methacrylate monomer. For copolymer/alkyd systems (either methyl methacrylate/butyl acrylate/acrylic acid/alkyd or methyl methacrylate/butyl acrylate/alkyd), more traditional core/shell morphologies were observed with a lesser degree of homonucleated particles. A significantly different result was found ill the combination of butyl acrylate and alkyd, resulting in a continuous particle-phase of polylbutyl acrylate and small internally dispersed island domains of alkyd. This is likely due to the lesser incompatibility between polybutyl acrylate and alkyd along with their similar hydrophobicity and glass transition temperatures. A higher degree of grafting between the alkyd and polybutyl acrylate also contributed to the compatibility between the two components, when compared to hybrid methyl methacrylate/alkyd systems.