Alkenyl aromatic polymer microspheres via γ-ray irradiation-assisted self-assembly after free-radical polymerization

Irradiation-assisted self-assembly after free-radical polymerization (ISFP) method is a simple and novel one-pot synthetic strategy to prepare polymer microspheres. Herein, various alkenyl aromatic polymer microspheres were prepared by ISFP method. The relationship between the microsphere structure and monomers was researched by various experimental methods including the monomer activity, chemical structure and steric hindrance. The result shows that the uniform microspheres cannot be well prepared by monomers with too high or too low monomer activity. The desired alkenyl aromatic microspheres with certain size can be synthetized by choosing moderate activity and cis- / trans-isomers.