Preparation of Acrylic Microgels by Modified Microemulsion Polymerization and Phase Inversion.

Semi-transparent reactive microgel in nanosize has been prepared by modified microemulsion polymerization using a common emulsifier, crosslinking agent and functional monomer. The microgels are translucent reactive nanoparticles, with the size of 40–100 nm, consisting of inner-crosslinked polymer up to 40%. FT-IR proved the functional groups, such as epoxy and hydroxy, are on the surface of the microgel nanoparticles. Rheological detection demonstrated the apparent pseudoplasticity of the non-aqueous microgel dispersion prepared by the phase transfering from the O/W microlatexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]