Water Expandable Polystyrene nanocomposites via Surfactant Free Inverse Pickering Emulsion Polymerization

Here, we present a method to synthesize expandable spherical polystyrene beads containing well-dispersed water microdroplets. The beads were prepared through surfactant-free Pickering emulsion polymerization in water-in-oil-in-water (w/o/w) system using crosslinked starch nanoparticles (CSTN) as emulsifier. The entrapped water microdroplets with the average size of 3-4 μm were shown to be surrounded by a dense layer of the CSTN. The number density of droplets as well as water content in the polystyrene beads increased with the CSTN content. These characteristics along with good expansion behavior suggest the synthesized beads as expandable polystyrene containing water as a green blowing agent

کلیدواژه ها:

Water expandable polystyrene ، Starch nanoparticle ، Pickering emulsion polymerization