poly(styrene)
Date of Commercial Development- 1937 (Seymour 6)
Glass transition temperature- 100 deg C (Seymour 29)
Styrene monomer must be purified from trace impurities and inhibitors
prior to the polymerization. This can be done either by vacuum
distillation, or by purifying the monomer through an alumina
chromatography column. The purified monomer is sealed under nitrogen
in a glass polymerization tube and heated at 125 deg C for 1 to 7 days.
The polymer contains unreacted monomer which can be removed by dissolving
the polymer in benzene, and then precipitating it with methanol. A
product with a molecular weight of 150,000 can be prepared this way.
[reference: Allcocke and Lampe- First edition]
Last Update- June 14, 1995- wld