Synthesis and characterizations of hydrophobically associating water-soluble polymer with nonionic surfmer

ABSTRACT In this article, a hydrophobically associating copolymer (2‐acrylamido)‐2‐methylpropanesulfonic acid (AMPS)/AA‐EO 25 C 12 was synthesized by AMPS and nonionic surfmer AA‐EO 25 C 12 through free radical copolymerization. The structure of copolymer was characterized by FT‐IR and 1 H‐NMR. The properties of copolymer were studied and the results indicated that the copolymer exhibits good thickening ability due to intermolecular hydrophobic associations as the apparent viscosity of the copolymer solution increases sharply with increasing polymer concentration. Compared with homopolymer PAMPS, the rheological test indicates that the copolymer solution shows shear thickening behavior at low shear rate region. Besides, the copolymer exhibits interfacial activity as it can reduce the interfacial tension to 10° level, and ability to form emulsion with good stability, which is due to successfully introducing the structure of nonionic surfmer AA‐EO 25 C 12 to the polymer chain. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133 , 43195.