Professor Li Bo-geng published an cover paper on 《Macromolecular Reaction Engineering》

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Editor：admin Date：2012-10-26 13:54:17 Hits:3377

Professor Li Bo-geng published an cover paper- “Graft Copolymerization of Styrene and Acrylonitrile in the Presence of Poly(propylene glycol): Particle Growth” on《Macromolecular Reaction Engineering》, Volume 6, Issue 9-10, pages 395–405, October 2012.

Graft copolymerization of styrene (St) and acrylonitrile (AN) in the presence of polypropylene glycol (PPG) is used to prepare graft polyether polyol (POP), which is widely applied in manufacturing high-performance polyurethane foams and elastomers. The present system starts from a homogeneous system and becomes a two-phase system (a PPG-rich continuous phase and a SAN-rich disperse phase) soon after the beginning due to the limitted misicbility between St-AN (SAN) copolymer and PPG. After then, polymerization involves partition behaviors of reactants and two polymerization loci, which makes the polymerization process very complicated. This essay reports study on particle nucleation and growth during graft copolymerization process. The particle growth in the graft free-radical copolymerization of styrene (St) and acrylonitrile (AN) in the presence of poly(propylene glycol) is investigated by experiments and modeling. The concentrations of chain transfer agent and macromer, and the St/AN ratio play important roles in particle size and its distribution. A particle size model is developed and an analytic expression for the particle size in terms of monomer mass concentration (Wmt0), initiator molar concentration ([I]0), and macromer mass concentration (WM0) is derived. The particle size is described experimentally as: . Particle growth processes under various experimental conditions are well described by the model.

Professor Li Bo-geng has carried out a series of studies on Graft Copolymerization of Styrene and Acrylonitrile in the Presence of Poly(propylene glycol) and has published on Macromolecules, Chemical Engineering Science, AIChE Journal and so on.