Preparation of Wool-g-Glycidyl Methacrylate with a Constructed –SH Groups/Ammonium Persulfate Redox System and Characterization

To explore suitable synthesis parameters of efficient graft copolymerization on wool, the disulfide bonds in wool chains were reduced to sulfhydryl groups by the treatment of thioglycolic acid to wool, and then wool-g-poly(glycidyl methacrylate) was prepared by graft copolymerization of wool with glycidyl methacrylate by building a redox system between sulfhydryl groups and ammonium persulfate. The wool-g-poly(glycidyl methacrylate) was characterized by the analyses of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric and x-ray diffraction. Influences of molar concentrations of monomer and initiator as well as reaction temperature on grafting ratios were investigated. The experimental results showed that the sulfhydryl groups/ammonium persulfate redox system built could effectively initiate graft polymerization of lipophilic glycidyl methacrylate on the wool surface in an aqueous medium. The suitable process parameters of graft copolymerization were: 0.6 mmol/L molar concentration of glycidyl methacrylate, 3.0 mmol/L molar concentration of ammonium persulfate, and reaction temperature of 50 ℃. At the suitable parameters, the grafting ratio of wool-g-poly(glycidyl methacrylate) showed a maximum value of 195.8 %, indicating an efficient graft copolymerization was achieved. The copolymerization could reduce the degree of crystallinity of wool. The wool-g-poly(glycidyl methacrylate) had higher thermal stability than raw wool at a temperature of below 406 ℃ by performing the thermogravimetric analysis. Based on the results, we successfully built new sulfhydryl groups on the wool/ammonium persulfate redox system, prepared the wool-g-poly(glycidyl methacrylate), and this work will lay an important foundation for the application of wool-g-poly(glycidyl methacrylate) in the textile field.