Permanently antistatic and high transparent PMMA terpolymer: Compatilizer, antistatic agent, and the antistatic mechanism

Permanently antistatic and high transparent PMMA terpolymer, P(MMA-co-HPA-co-SPMA), were reported in this paper, providing a new method to significantly improve the antistatic properties of PMMA without sacrificing transparency. 2-Hydroxypropyl acrylate (HPA) was chosen as a kind of compatilizer because of the good compatibility with both methyl methacrylate (MMA) and sulfopropyl methacrylate potassium salt (SPMA), a potential antistatic agent with a strong hydrophilic group. The mechanical and optical properties of P(MMA-co-HPA-co-SPMA) terpolymer barely show any visibly differences compared to PMMA homopolymer, confirmed through Fourier transform infrared, dynamic mechanical analysis, and a haze meter. Furthermore, antistatic property analysis indicates that only a small amount of SPMA can significantly improve the antistatic properties of the obtained PMMA terpolymers. The surface resistivity of the P(MMA-co-HPA-co-SPMA) sheets could be reduced to 10 9 Ω sq −1 order of magnitude, while the SPMA content reached 0.72 wt%. The hydrophilic groups, the hydroxyl and acrylate sulfonate, on the surface contributed to attract the water molecules, which rendered it a reasonably good antistatic property. These selected terpolymers will provide more opportunities to develop high-performance and antistatic products made from PMMA materials.