Water and Carbon Dioxide: A Unique Solvent for the Catalytic Polymerization of Ethylene in Miniemulsion

Jean-Christophe Daigle; Frank P Lucien; Per B Zetterlund; Jerome P Claverie

doi:10.1002/asia.201700669

Water and Carbon Dioxide: A Unique Solvent for the Catalytic Polymerization of Ethylene in Miniemulsion

Chem Asian J. 2017 Aug 17;12(16):2057-2061. doi: 10.1002/asia.201700669. Epub 2017 Jul 21.

Authors

Jean-Christophe Daigle¹, Frank P Lucien², Per B Zetterlund², Jerome P Claverie¹

Affiliations

¹ Quebec Center for Functional Materials, Université de Sherbrooke, Dept of Chemistry, Sherbrooke, J1K2R1, Qc, Canada.
² Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD), School of Chemical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.

PMID: 28649783
DOI: 10.1002/asia.201700669

Abstract

The catalytic polymerization of ethylene is performed in water pressurized with CO₂ . The size of the initial monomer droplets and of the resulting polymer particles can be varied by simply changing the CO₂ pressure. Furthermore, at identical ethylene partial pressure, the polymerizations performed in the presence of CO₂ are significantly faster than in its absence. Thus, the combination of CO₂ and water is a promising green solvent for catalytic emulsion polymerizations.

Keywords: catalysis; emulsion; green chemistry; polymerization; water chemistry.