In an industrial setting, the stability of polymer dispersions is an important property and needs to be well understood during product development in order to deliver commercial products that offer consistent performance over a long period of time. This presentation will demonstrate how an analytical centrifugation technique (LUMiSizer®, LUM GmbH) can be used to facilitate the stability study of polymer dispersions as well as to promote process and formulation optimization. Unlike other stability assessment methods such as direct visualization or solid concentration measurement, the analytical centrifugation is an accelerated technique that provides quantitative information about the phase separation kinetics (sedimentation or creaming). An example will be given to showcase how this technique can be used to quantitatively predict the shelf-life of a polymer latex product and shorten the development cycle for optimizing formulation parameters such as surface charge, %solids, viscosity, etc. Another example will be given to illustrate how analytical centrifugation is applied to investigate a gelling issue during the production of a polymer dispersion product. Additional data will be shown including capillary zone electrophoresis, particle size distribution, viscosity, and particle morphology to support the finding from the centrifugation method. Lastly, some limitations of this method will also be discussed.

Understand polymer dispersion stability using an analytical centrifugation method

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ACS Fall 2022

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