PREPARATION OF POLYMERIC MICROSPHERE-SILICA HYBRID MATERIALS BY ALKOXIDE PROCESS

In order to prepare inorganic-organic hybrid materials,the sol-gel process (alkoxide process) has been regarded as most suitable. In this work,the authors investigated the utilization of polymeric microspheres, such as acrylic reactive microgel, and acrylic polymer latexes which were chosen as the plasticizing organic polymer components for the incorporation with tetraethoxysilane as an inorganic component. The reactive microgel was mixed directly with tetraethoxysilane without cosolvent ethanol under mild agitation until a homogeneous emulsion state is formed. Due to the combination of tetraethoxysilane which was the precurser of inorganic silica glass and acrylic reactive microgel, natural dried films of these hybrid materials exhibited useful proper-ties such as improved flexibility,high gloss transparency, solvent resistance, and excellent mechanical reinforcement.