Composition and Phase Morphology of Hard/Soft Acrylic Latex Polymers: NMR and AFM Study

Butyl Acrylate (BA) and Methyl Methacryate (MMA) copolymers with different molar ratios in latex particles lead to segregated hard and soft nanodomains. The presence of both monomers in the hard and soft nanodomains is challenging for traditional techniques for morphology studies such as Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) due to lack of atomic contrast. We have used NMR experiments together with statistical analysis of comonomer sequences to determine the composition of the monomers in each phase coupled with Atomic Force microscopy (AFM) to probe the phase morphology and particle sizes. The synergy of the two techniques provides the opportunity to probe interface mixing between the continuous soft phase and the segregated hard phase that has some impact on the final size of the hard and soft phases after film formation.