Effect of hybrid emulsifier (reactive coupling with anionic) on the properties of acrylic emulsion

In this article, a series of emulsifiers were investigated to prepare acrylic latex by seeded semi-continuous emulsion polymerization. The cloud point of nonionic emulsifiers was introduced to explain the emulsifier effects on the emulsification ability during changeable temperature. It was found that, under the same temperature and other experiment conditions, the hybrid emulsifiers (reactive coupling with anionic) could stabilize the pre-emulsion and latex very well. What was studied in detail was the stability of emulsion polymerization, the appearance of the emulsion system and other properties of latex film by changing the adding method, and content and proportion of hybrid emulsifiers. Water absorption of latex film was determined by the gravimetric method. When 2-acrylanmido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid (AMPS) to sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) was less than 2:1, the content of the hybrids reached about 2–3% and when the pre-emulsifying used 2/3 of them, the copolymer emulsion was found to have excellent stability and small particle size with narrow distribution and its film to have low water absorption than those of the latex prepared with SDS alone. What is more, a small amount of hybrid emulsifier could achieve the same emulsification effect compared with SDS alone. And the chemical structure was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry.