Sulfonate-containing Copolymers Prepared by SemiContinuous Emulsion Copolymerizaiton of Styrene and Sodium Styrene Sulfonate

1Introduction Soap-free emulsion copolymerization of styrene (St) and sodium sulfonate styrene (NaSS) could yield homodisperse sulfonate-containing particles with clean surface. But the incorporation of NaSS could never be increased beyond 2.6 % by weight in the conventional batch and seeded emulsion copolymerization in the absence of emulsifier because large amounts of soluble polyelectrolyte would unstablize the reaction system if excessive amount of NaSS was used[1]. In our work, semi-continuous copolymerizations were carried out in the presence of mixed emulsifiers, and a new method to purify the latex polymer was developed. The influences of the NaSS mole ratio in the total monomers and the monomer addition time on the S content in the purified copolymer were investigated by elemental analysis.