Functionalized polystyrene latex particles as substrates for ATRP: Surface and colloidal characterization

In this work, the process for producing polystyrene particles surface functionalized with a thin shell of ATRP initiator polymerized alone or along with styrene and a crosslinker, is presented. Copolymerization of styrene and acrylic end-capped ATRP initiator to generate a thin shell on the fully polymerized core particles suffered from secondary nucleation owing to their possible incompatibility with the core particles and their own colloidal stability. One step functionalization processes, where the shell forming monomers are added directly to the 70% polymerized core particles, lead to significant changes in the resulting particle morphologies. The shot addition of these monomers led to a very uniform surface morphology without any secondary nucleation owing to quick coalescence of the secondary particles on the soft surface of the seed particles. Addition of crosslinker to the system helped in effectively eliminating the smaller particles generated due to secondary nucleation along with the chemical networking.