Surface modification of carbon black to facilitate suspension polymerization of styrene and carbon black

ABSTRACT To carry out suspension polymerization of styrene in the presence of carbon black, an effective method was introduced to modify carbon black using nitric acid for oxygen treatment. The surface modification of carbon black with oxidation was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which demonstrated that the chemical structure of carbon black has clearly changed. Compared with pristine carbon black (CB), SEM illustrates that the aggregation phenomenon of modified carbon black (MCB) was clearly weakened. After modification, the aggregation and inhibition effects of MCB on the polymerization of polystyrene/modified CB (PS/MCB) composite particles are obviously weakened. The lipophilicity of CB after modification was also increased during the synthesis of PS/MCB. The oxidized CB was successfully dispersed by polystyrene using in situ suspension polymerization. The dispersion and dosage of MCB in PS/MCB composite particles was greatly improved over that of CB in PS/CB composite particles. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135 , 46387.