The Miniemulsion Prepared By Color Toner With Colored Latex Particles

With the development of the information technology and the office's automation, higher requirements to the rapid output and high-resolution colored images and texts were putted forward. It is said that the needs of color toner is above 3000 tons in China, and keeping the annual growth rate at 20%. Because of the larger particle size and the irregular shape of the traditional melting crushing for preparation of color toner, which may lead to a decline in the quality of printing, chemically prepared toner (CPT) has been the main direction of manufacture of the toner. This paper is mainly about the preparation of the colored latex particles of color toner, via mini-emulsion polymerization, to improve the bad compatibility between the color toner resin and the organic pigment, and solve the problem of easy abscission during the process of printing. On the other hand, the latex particles were characterized by laser particle size analyzer, transmission electron microscopy, UV-VIS spectroscopy and thermal gravimetric analysis. The effects of emulsification technology, pigment, emulsifier and initiator were studied, and we focused on the formation of colored latex particle, the role of the pigment in the polymerization process and the dispersed state of the pigment in the latex particles. The specific content is as follows:1. According to characteristics of mini-emulsion polymerization and the requirements to colored latex particles of color toner, the appropriate intensity, reaction temperature and time were selected. According to the stability of the mini-emulsion and the average size of the latex particle, SDS/TX-100 were chosen as the mixed surfactant system of the experiment.2. The effects of the Components of the mixed surfactant system were studied, and the average size of latex particle was dropped to the minimum when the mixed surfactant system (SDS/Triton X-100) was 10/30. Meanwhile, the synergetic effects provided by both the electrostatic repulsive forces of SDS and steric stabilization mechanisms of TX-100 were the best.3. The effects of the types of initiator were studied, and the results showed that:The average size of the latex particles initiated by KPS was smaller than that initiated by AIBN, and the latex particles initiated by water-soluble initiator (KPS) were more connection, while the one initiated by oil soluble initiator (ABIN) were neatly arranged.4. The effects of pigments which play a role as a co-stabilizer were studied. We found that:The size of latex particle firstly decreases then increases with increasing [dye] (2%-10% based on total monomer), and the size of latex particle was the smallest when [dye] was 6%. What is more, we discussed dispersion state of the pigment in the latex particles;5. On the basis of PB15:3/PS, the introduction of the functional monomer (butyl-acrylate) was studied. We found that:butyl-acrylate not only changed thermal properties of the latex particle, but also increased the average particle size of the latex particles, due to the poor solubility of pigments in butyl acrylate.