Synthesis of cationic flocculants based on acrylamide and [2-(acryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium chloride co polymers by semicontinuous inverse microemulsion co polymerization. Part I: Criteria for selection of comonomer formulation

The influence of surfactant blend composition, organic solvent (oil) structure and cationic charge density (CCD) on stability of comonomer inverse microemulsions of acrylamide and [2-(acryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium chloride has been studied in order to obtain criteria for selecting comonomer inverse microemulsions before copolymerization resulting in copolymer inverse microemulsion useful as flocculants. Results show that optimum HLB can be explained by cohesive energy ratio theory and it increases with CCD; the higher the hydrophobic chain length of surfactants in surfactant blend, the lower the minimum surfactant blend concentrations (SBCm) needed to obtain stable inverse microemulsions; and linear organic solvents allow a decrease of the SBCm required for stabilizing comonomer inverse microemulsions.