The preparation of monodisperse colloidal microlatex particles of polystyrene and poly(styrene butene diacid) by the use of microwave radiation and under normal ambient pressure is reported. There is no surfactant in the system.The total synthesis time has been reduced from more then 10h(conventional method) to less than 1 h(microwave mothod). The dynamic experimental results indicate that the reaction proecss is very sharp in comparison with conventional polymerization. No constant rate stage existed.
Polymerization of styrene and methylmethacrylate was conducted in the presence of seeds and microwave irradiation. The particles were characterized by laser light scattering and transmission electron microscopy. Making comparison between two kinds of microsphere formation processes, we have obtained some information on the mechanism of the particle formation. For polystyrene the process was mainly conducted on the seeds. However, for polymethylmacrylate at the lower concentration range, the process was mainly conducted in the solution, in contrary, at higher concentration, it occured mainly on the seeds.
