Facile size-controllable syntheses of highly monodisperse polystyrene nano- and microspheres by polyvinylpyrrolidone-mediated emulsifier-free emulsion polymerization

A facile emulsifier-free emulsion polymerization approach was developed to fabricate highly monodisperse polystyrene (PS) spheres using potassium persulfate as the initiator and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as a stabilizer, respectively. It was found that the size of monodisperse PS spheres tends to decrease with increase of the PVP concentration, and the size of monodisperse PS spheres could be easily controlled in a wide range from 200 to 1500 nm simply by adjusting the concentration of PVP. The increase of monomer concentration led to the increase in size of monodisperse PS spheres. In contrast, the increase of initiator concentration resulted in the decrease in size of monodisperse PS spheres. These concentration changes, however, did not significantly affect the size distributions of PS spheres. It was also found that the size of monodisperse PS spheres obtained by adding the initiator at room temperature was larger than that by adding the initiator at 70 degrees C, and the existence of inhibitor resulted in smaller PS spheres. The mechanisms in which the above factors influence the size and size distribution were discussed. (c) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.