Evidences of a hydrolysis process in the synthesis of N-vinylcaprolactam-based microgels

The hydrolysis process suffered by vinylcaprolactam (VCL) monomer during polymerization and the way of avoiding it is a matter of considerable interest when the final material is used in biomedical applications. In this work, in order to study the hydrolysis process in the synthesis of VCL-based microgels, VCL was polymerized by emulsion polymerization in batch and semi-batch reactors by using N,N′-methylenebisacrylamide (BA) as cross-linker and potassium persulfate (KPS) as initiator. Moreover, the partial conversion evolutions of VCL and BA were analyzed by 1H NMR. The colloidal characterization was carried out by measuring the final average diameters as a function of temperature. The results showed that there were two competitive reactions (hydrolysis and propagation) in the polymerizations carried out in the absence of a buffer. However, VCL did not suffer hydrolysis by adding a buffer in the recipes. A new reliable method for the determination of the partial conversions was developed using the quantitative NMR method. The final cross-linked colloidal particles (microgel particles) obtained in the buffered reaction presented the conventional swelling de-swelling behavior corresponding to temperature sensitive microgels.