ORIGINAL PAPER
Preparation and characterization of poly
(styrene-co-Methacrylic acid) copolymer nanoparticles
via precipitation polymerization
M. R. El-Aassar
1
&
E. A. Soliman
1
&
A. I. Hashem
2
&
Gang sun
3
&
N. Amaly
1,3
Received: 24 May 2017 /Accepted: 24 October 2017
#
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017
Abstract Nanoparticls of multifunctional polymers have
very promising characteristics that make this type of the poly-
mers have rapidly growing research attentions and innova-
tions due to advantageous high surface area to volume ratio.
In this study, poly (Styrene-co-Methacrylic acid) (P)St-co-
MAA)) copolymer nanoparticles were synthesized using free
radical polymerization method. Copolymerization takes place
via a precipitation polymerization technique. Different poly-
merization factors such as co-monomer concentration and ra-
tio, polymerization temperatures, polymerization time, initia-
tor concentration and solvent composition were studied to
obtain the copolymerization conditions that produce the max-
imum copolymerization conversion yield and the minimum
particle size in nanosize range in a very narrow size distribu-
tion. The P)St-co-MAA) copolymer nanoparticles were char-
acterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR),
scanning electron microscope (SEM), and Thermogravimetric
analysis (TGA). When the copolymerization occurred at a
monomer ratio of MAA: St (90:10) we obtained the smallest
particle size of 25 nm. The maximum conversion yield
reached to 99.5% within 4 h of polymerization in the case of
St: MAA (1:1) comonomer ratio and 10% total monomer ratio
using water:ethanol (1:1) mixture as a co-solvent system. The
results clearly demonstrated that use of water as a co-solvent is
indeed very effective to promote the polymerization to high
conversion. The MAA content in copolymer composition was
investigated by carboxylic content via titration method and
also by FTIR.
Keywords Polymerization
.
Copolymer
.
Nanoparticles
.
Styrene
.
Methacrylic acid
.
Characterization
Introduction
Polymer based nanoparticles are finding increased applica-
tions nowadays in medical [1, 2]industrial[3] and water treat-
ment fields because of the unique feature of high surface areas.
Multifunctional copolymer particles were used in enzyme im-
mobilization [4] oil improvers [5], oil spill cleaning materials
[6, 7] and other applications. Polystyrene is one of the most
important polymers of today. Usually styrene is used in copo-
lymerization due to its unique chemical property, hydrophobic
characteristics, transparency and low cost. Acrylic acid and
methacrylic acid have high reactive double bonds and misci-
bility with both oil- and water-soluble monomers. On the oth-
er hand, acrylic acids add important properties to their copol-
ymers including hydrophilicity, high polarity and stability in
aqueous systems for copolymers due to charged carboxylic
groups on copolymer surface [8]. Copolymers formed by hy-
drophilic blocks of poly acrylic acid (PAA) and hydrophobic
* M. R. El-Aassar
mohamed_elaassar@yahoo.com
* E. A. Soliman
emadsoliman@mucsat.sci.eg
1
Polymer Materials Research Department, Institute of Advanced
Technology and New Material Institute, City of Scientific Research
and Technological Applications (SRTA-City), New Borg El-Arab
City, Alexandria 21934, Egypt
2
Organic Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Ain-Shams
University, Cairo, Egypt
3
Fiber and Polymer Science, University of California,
Davis, CA 95616, USA
J Polym Res (2017) 24:207
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10965-017-1376-3
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