Morphological prediction and its application to the synthesis of polyacrylate/polysiloxane core/shell latex particles

A theoretical analysis and a morphological prediction of polyacrylate (PA)/ polysiloxane (PSi) latex particles with core/shell morphologies were first conducted based on interfacial tensions and relative volumes of the two polymers in the latex system. The results indicated that the normal core/shell morphology particles (PSi/PA), with hydrophobic polysiloxane as the core and with hydrophilic polyacrylate as the shell, can be easily formed. Although the inverted core/shell morphology particles (PA/PSi) with polyacrylate as the core could not be formed in most cases, even if the fraction volume of polysiloxane was larger than 0.872, which is the smallest value of forming a PA/PSi particle, the PSi/PA particles were unavoidably formed simultaneously with PA/PSi particle formation. The synthesis of PA/PSi particles containing equal amounts of polyacrylate and polysiloxane was then carried out using seeded emulsion polymerization. Before the cyclosiloxane cationic polymerization, 3-methacryloyloxypropyl trimethoxysilane (MATS) was introduced into the polyacrylate seed latex to form an intermediate layer and chemical bonds between the core and the shell polymers. The characterization by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) demonstrated that the perfect PA/PSi core/shell particle is successfully synthesized when both the core and the shell polymers are crosslinked. The experiments showed that both the hardness and water adsorption ratio characteristics of latex films of the PA/PSi particles are in good agreement with those of the polysiloxane film. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.