Synthesis of soybean oil-based polymer lattices via emulsion polymerization process

This work presents experimental results on the synthesis of soybean oil-based polymers through emulsion polymerization process. It was shown that polymeric materials can be successfully synthesized with high monomers conversion close to 100% and very high stability, displaying relatively high shelf-life time. Polymeric nanoparticles showing narrow particle size distribution, with average diameter around 80 nm (PdI = 0.213), determined via dynamic light scattering measurements were obtained. It was also observed by calorimetric analysis, that the final polymeric material presents two exothermic transitions and two glass transition temperatures. This complex thermal behavior probably takes place due to the nature of the monomeric mixture (AFFAM-acrylated linolenic, linoleic, and oleic acids in combination with methyl methacrylate), indicating that the final polymer presents a complex macromolecular arrangement. The glass transition temperature of the polymer lattices was reduced because of the AFFAM incorporation into the growing polymer chains, and additionally the thermal stability was improved. Regarding the average molar masses, it was observed that AFFAM comonomer plays an important role, leading to a decreasing in the mass-average molar mass when the AFFAM concentration is increased in the reaction medium. Depending on the AFFAM amount, the mass-average molar masses were found within the range from 70,000g mol(-1) to 890,000 g mol(-1) with molar-mass dispersity lying in the interval from 1.7 to 2.4. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.