Controlled Synthesis Of Surface-Functionalized Polymeric Microspheres And Its Ion Adsorption Property

Polymeric microspheres represent a kind of important materials, which is from thenanometer to micron size in diameter and the shape of the polymer material is sphere orsome other geometry. It’s morphology includes solid or hollow sphere, dumbbell-shaped,porous type and so on. Functionalized polymeric microspheres have broad applicationsin various fields. For instance, it can be applied in environmental protection to removeheavy metal ions and harmful anions from the wastewater; it can also be used asbioseparations, drug and enzyme transmission, adsorption, immune diagaostics in themedical and biochemical; more importantly, optical and optoelectronic properties of theparticles are attracting more and more interest of the chemists. On the other hand, inrecent years, with the development of the controlled/living radical polymerization inthe polymer synthesis with “well-defined” structure and controlled molecular weight,synthesis and application of surface-functionalized polymeric microspheres havereceived more attention.Specific studies of this paper are as follows:(1) Controlled synthesis of surface poly(ionic liquid)-functionalized polymericmicrospheres and its ion adsorption property.The poly(ionic liquid)-functionalized microspheres were successfully prepared by“one-pot” emulsion polymerization of styrene/divinylbenzene with poly(1-vinyl-3-ethybromideimidazole)-b-PSt as an amphiphilic emulsifier. The end of the blockcopolymer has the structure of dithio compounds, and thereby poly(ionic liquid) wasintroduced into the shell via the RAFT polymerization process in the emulsionpolymerization process. The monodisperse microspheres were obtained with about400nm of the diameters and the clear core-shell structures. The functionalizedmicrospheres show high ability to coordinate with NO3-and PO43-, and the capacity canreach0.151mmol/g and0.113mmol/g respectively. The maximum capacity could be increased with the chain length of charged block.(2) Synthesis of Surface-Functionalized Polystyrene Sub-Micron Spheres UsingReactive Amphiphilic Comonomer.A facile “one-pot” emulsion polymerization was applied to preparesurface-functionalized sub-micron spheres using an amphiphilic comonomer as thereactive emulsifier. Specifically, amphiphilic3-[2-(acryloyloxy)ethoxy]-3-oxopropyl(phenyl) phosphinic sodium (AEOPS) was used not only as a comonomer, but also as anemulsifier for the polymerization of styrene/divinylbenzene. Nearly monodispersepolystyrene sub-micron spheres with tunable sizes and zeta potentials were obtained.The phosphinic group-functionalized surfaces were demonstrated by the use of theseparticles to remove heavy metal ions (such as Cd2+, Pb2+) from water with a highefficiency, and the maximum adsorption amount of Cd2+and Pb2+is respectively2.255mmol/g and0.982mmol/g. The capacity was increased with the concentration ofAEOPS during the emulsion polymerization process.