Spherical polymer

Information on the morphology of the nanohybrid sorbents also was revealed with SEM analysis. Dispersed spherical polymer-silica particles with a diameter of 0.3-5 pm were observed. Every particle, in one s turn, is a porous material with size of pores to 200 nm and spherical particles from 100 nm to 500 nm. Therefore, the obtained samples were demonstrated to form a nanometer - scale porous structure. 

Generally, the number of the shell chains in a microsphere ranges from a few hundred to a few thousand. The range of the diameter of the core is from 10-100 nm. Such a core-shell structure is very similar to the (AB)n type star block copolymers, which have many arms and spherical polymer micelles of the block or graft copolymers formed in selective solvents that are good for the corona sequence and bad for the core sequence. In fact, many theoretical investigations of the chain con-... 

Mono- and Multilayers of Spherical Polymer Particles Prepared by Langmuir-Blodgett and Self-Assembly Techniques... 

LANGMUIR FILMS OF SPHERICAL POLYMER PARTICLES A. Film Preparation... 

In the same year, Fulda and Tieke [75] reported on Langmuir films of monodisperse, 0.5-pm spherical polymer particles with hydrophobic polystyrene cores and hydrophilic shells containing polyacrylic acid or polyacrylamide. Measurement of ir-A curves and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to determine the structure of the monolayers. In subsequent work, Fulda et al. [76] studied a variety of particles with different hydrophilic shells for their ability to form Langmuir films. Fulda and Tieke [77] investigated the influence of subphase conditions (pH, ionic strength) on monolayer formation of cationic and anionic particles as well as the structure of films made from bidisperse mixtures of anionic latex particles. 

The polymerization applied produces spherical polymer particles (1-10 pm diameter) connected by polymer bridges [3]. Thus, a one-piece polymer phase is obtained. The interstices between the particles have a characteristic length of a few micrometers. Overall, the polymer structure can be ascribed as lose. 

An aqueous colloidal polymeric dispersion by definition is a two-phase system comprised of a disperse phase and a dispersion medium. The disperse phase consists of spherical polymer particles, usually with an average diameter of 200-300 nm. According to their method of preparation, aqueous colloidal polymer dispersions can be divided into two categories (true) latices and pseudolatices. True latices are prepared by controlled polymerization of emulsified monomer droplets in aqueous solutions, whereas pseudolatices are prepared starting from already polymerized macromolecules using different emulsification techniques. 

Spherical polymer pellets with a diameter of 1/8 in. and an SG of 0.96 are to be transported pneumatically using air at 80°F. The pipeline is horizontal, 6 in. ID and 100 ft long, and discharges at atmospheric pressure. It is desired to transport 15% by volume of solids, at a velocity that is 1 ft/s above the minimum deposit velocity. 

In 1994, we reported the dispersion polymerization of MM A in supercritical C02 [103]. This work represents the first successful dispersion polymerization of a lipophilic monomer in a supercritical fluid continuous phase. In these experiments, we took advantage of the amphiphilic nature of the homopolymer PFOA to effect the polymerization of MMA to high conversions (>90%) and high degrees of polymerization (> 3000) in supercritical C02. These polymerizations were conducted in C02 at 65 °C and 207 bar, and AIBN or a fluorinated derivative of AIBN were employed as the initiators. The results from the AIBN initiated polymerizations are shown in Table 3. The spherical polymer particles which resulted from these dispersion polymerizations were isolated by simply venting the C02 from the reaction mixture. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the product consisted of spheres in the pm size range with a narrow particle size distribution (see Fig. 7). In contrast, reactions which were performed in the absence of PFOA resulted in relatively low conversion and molar masses. Moreover, the polymer which resulted from these precipitation... 

The supramolecular transformation from sphere to cylinder is supported by X-ray data indicating that the spherical polymers adopt a cubic phase, whereas the cylindrical polymers adopt a hexagonal phase [23b]. Further studies involving a library of dendritic macromonomers led to the conclusion that the effect of DP on polymer shape is a general phenomenon [24], More recently, scanning... 

Interest in dendritic polymers (dendrimers) has grown steadily over the past decade due to use of these molecules in numerous industrial and biomedical applications. One particular class of dendrimers, Starburst polyamidoamine (PAMAM) polymers, a new class of nanoscopic, spherical polymers that appears safe and nonimmunogenic for potential use in a variety of therapeutic applications for human diseases. This chapter will focus on investigations into PAMAM dendrimers for in vitro and in vivo nonviral gene delivery as these studies have progressed from initial discoveries to recent animal trials. In addition, we will review other applications of dendrimers where the polymers are surface modified. This allows the opportunity to target-deliver therapeutics or act as competitive inhibitors of viral or toxin attachment to cells. 

Surfactant vesicles have, in fact, been used as templates for the synthesis of ultrathin, spherical polymer membranes [337]. The approach involved the formation of SUVs from mixtures of diallylammonium dihexadecylphosphate and sodium dihexadecylphosphate, polymerization of the counterions coating... 

In order to precipitate the polymer, conventionally, the polymer solution is mixed with a non-solvent or a polymer solution is poured into a non-solvent. If the polymer precipitates rapidly a fiber like precipitate having a low bulk density is obtained. In contrast, if the non-solvent is slowly added to the polymer solution the polymer precipitates slowly. As a result, uniform and spherical polymer particles having a bulk density are obtained (32). 

Fig. 5.4-8 Non-spherical polymer particles from an industrial catalyst...

The scaling theory for spherical polymer brushes due to Daoud and Cotton (1982) (Section 3.4.1) has been applied to analyse the coronal density profile of block copolymer micelles by Forster et al. (1996). If the density profile is of the hyperbolic form r as found by FOrster et al. (1996) for the coronal layer of block copolymer micelles, the brush height scales as... 

Monodispersed sols containing spherical polymer particles (e.g. polystyrene latexes22"24, 135) can be prepared by emulsion polymerisation, and are particularly useful as model systems for studying various aspects of colloidal behaviour. The seed sol is prepared with the emulsifier concentration well above the critical micelle concentration then, with the emulsifier concentration below the critical micelle concentration, subsequent growth of the seed particles is achieved without the formation of further new particles. 

E. Wolert, S. M. Setz, R. S. Underhill, R. S. Duran, M. Schappacher, A. Deffieux, M. Holderle, and R. Mulhaupt, Meso- and microscopic behaviour of spherical polymer particles assembling at the air-water interface, Langmuir 17, 5671-5677 (2001). 

The similar, older slurry process uses a less active catalyst. The monomer is dissolved in isooctane, the titanium catalyst and aluminium cocatalyst are added and this mixture is fed to the reactor which is maintained at 70°C. The inorganic corrosive (Cl) residues are removed in a washing step with alcohols. The atactic material is removed by extraction. A third process employs propene as the liquid in combination with a high activity catalyst. The Himont Spheripol process, which uses spherical catalyst particles, gives spherical polymer beads of millimetre size that need no extrusion for certain purposes. A more recent development is the gas-phase polymerization using an agitated bed. All processes are continuous processes, where the product is continuously removed from the reactor. Over the years we have seen a reduction of the number of process steps. The process costs are very low nowadays, propene feed costs amounting to more than 60% of the total cost. 

Lu Y, Mei Y, Walker R, Ballauff M, Drechsler M (2006) Nano-tree -type spherical polymer brush particles as templates for metallic nanoparticles. Polymer 47 4985 1995... 

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