Synthesis of core-shell polymer microspheres by two-stage distillation–precipitation polymerization

Narrow- or monodisperse core-shell polymer microspheres with a dense core and a lightly crosslinked shell with different functional groups, such as ester, hydroxyl, cyano, were prepared by two-stage distillation–precipitation polymerization without any stabilizer. Commercial divinylbenzene (DVB), containing 80% of DVB was polymerized by distillation–precipitation polymerization with 2,2′-azobis(2-methyl propionitrile) (AIBN) as initiator in neat acetonitrile in the absence of any stabilizer as the first stage polymerization and used as the core. When the conversion of DVB was about 35% in the first stage, the second-comonomers with different functional groups, such as methyl methacrylate (MMA), ethyl methacrylate (EMA), butyl methacrylate (BMA), 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), i-octyl acrylate (i-OA), dodecyl acrylate (DA), methyl acrylate (MA), ethyl acrylate (EA), ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA), triethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA), trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate (Trim), and acrylnitrile (AN) together with AIBN were introduced, respectively, into the reaction system and copolymerized with unreacted DVB on the core surface to form a lightly crosslinked functional shell. The resulting core-shell polymer particles were characterized with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and FT-IR spectra.