Recent advances and challenges in the synthesis of polymer colloids

This review contains three parts. The first part is devoted on recent progress about nucleation, and capture of oligoradicals by the polymer particles, together with some recent data about renucleation with the purpose to obtain high solid latexes with low viscosity. The second part deals with the so-called controlled radical polymerization with few preliminary attempts to apply the nitroxy-mediated system of 'living polymerization' in emulsion on dispersion polymerization. The third part is a review of the most recent data involving the use of reactive (polymerizable) surfactants for emulsion, dispersion and microemulsion polymerization. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.