Monodisperse polymer beads as packing material for high‐performance liquid chromatography. Synthesis and properties of monidisperse polystyrene and poly(methacrylate) latex seeds

Abstract The effects of initiator concentration, ionic strength of polymerization medium, polymerization temperature, and monomer/water phase ratio on particle size, particle size distribution and molecular weight of the resulting polymers prepared by an emulsifier‐free emulsion polymerization of styrene, methyl methacrylate and glycidyl methacrylate have been studied. Optimal conditions for preparation of uniformly sized polystyrene particles larger than 1 μm have been found. An attempt to synthesize monodisperse particles of similar size from methacrylate monomers and crosslinked particles has failed. It is shown that the swelling ability of “non‐activated” latex particles does not exceed 70 fold increase in the volume and strongly depends on the size of the original particles.