Preparation of monodispersed crosslinked polymer beads

In preparing micron-sized monodisperse polystyrene beads by dispersion polymerization, the conversion, and the particle size and its distribution were affected by the reaction temperature, concentration of the monomer, solvent and initiator, molecular weight and concentration of the steric stabilizer, amount of oxygen existing in the reactor, and an appropriate combination of these starting materials. Ethanol as a dispersing agent, styrene as a monomer, PVP as a steric stabilizer, AIBN as an initiator, DVB as a cross-linking agent and toluene as a co-solvent were the basic materials for the synthesis. The reaction rate and the conversion were increased with the reaction temperature and the amount of DVB from 1 to 4%, and the conversion was saturated after 10 hours of the reaction time. The optimum reaction recipe for the preparation of the monodisperse PS beads was 25% styrene monomer, 0.5% DVB, 25% toluene, 10-15% PVP, and 2 and 4% AIBN, thereby, 3.9-4 μm and 3.4-9.3 μm of polystyrene beads, respectively, were successfully synthesized.