Control of size distribution in Suspension Copolymerization of Styrene and Acrylonitrile

Here, we describe our efforts to set the quantities of raw materials and the reaction conditions necessary to synthesize styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN) copolymer beads with a narrow particle size distribution. The dominant average particle size was between 150-350 microns. Because there are numerous operant parameters involved in the suspension copolymerization of styrene and acrylonitrile, an experimental design was created to reduce the number of experiments necessary for determining optimum reaction conditions. We determined that higher polymerization temperatures resulted in a great increase of reaction rate, but reaction temperatures greater than 76C were not influential on the final monomer conversion. Increasing the initiator concentration resulted in higher conversions, but it was not an influential conversion when used in amounts greater than 0.5 wt% of monomers. The average particle size reached a maximum at a polymerization temperature of 83C, but it decreased as the stirring speed was increased from 500 to 1000 rpm

کلیدواژه ها:

Suspension polymerization ، styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN) ، reaction rate ، particle size ، conversion