Peculiar features of emulsion copolymerization with functionally substituted water‐soluble comonomers

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Abstract
Despite the considerable interest displayed by industry in latex polymers with functional groups, the study of the process of producing such latexes by the method of emulsion polymerization has just started. It should be expected that the introduction of functional groups into the interphase layer will entail a change in the course of the colloid and polymerization processes in the reaction system. In this work, the authors studied precisely this aspect of the process of emulsion copolymerization. Correlation between the polarity of a monomer (or monomer composition) on the one hand, and the kinetics of polymerization and adsorption of the emulsifier, on the other, has been shown in the case of alkyl acrylates and their copolymerization with functional monomers differing in their solubility in water. It has also been shown that localization in the interphase layer of functional groups capable of interaction, for instance, owing to the formation of hydrogen bonds, sharply intensifies the effect of these groups on the mechanical and thermomechanical properties of a polymer obtained through emulsion polymerization. The same fact leads to localization of crossing processes in interglobular regions in a latex polymer.