At my first trial, I've been dissolved PMMA powder in acetone with magnetic stirrer in room temperature for 30 minutes. It turns out that PMMA powder becomes gel and gets hardened with many tiny bubbles. And then on a second trial, I've tried it again to stir it only for 15 minutes to make it not as harder as first trial--because I need to mix PMMA with PLA/PCL.
My questions are
1. How to dissolve PMMA powder in acetone to be homogenous solution perfectly (I mean, is there any temperature required? How long does it need to be stirred?)
2. What is the characteristics of perfectly homogenous solution of PMMA in acetone?
Polymers generally take a long time to dissolve especially if the MW is high. It will take a while for the gel to swell and disperse with gentle agitation.
Dear Dr. Evangelina Tessia Pricilla ,
Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is one of the most studied polymers due to its stability, low-cost, low optical loss in the visible spectrum, high scratch hardness and low glass temperature. PMMA is an important optic thermoplastic material with perfect transparency in the visible region, it is mostly used in optics and electronics; but its application is limited by the low thermal stability of this polymer.
For more details, please see at: http://www.gaggione.com/downloads/polyacrylicoracrylicresinpmma.pdf
The polymethyl methacrylate is dissolved in acetone and the mix is agitated, sometimes even raising the temperature to 30-40 °C. Sometimes also co-solvent(s) -typically C2-C6 alcohols- are added in order to increase the solubility of PMMA in the resulting solutions and enhance the solution sensitivity to temperature fluctuations. Generally, at first the mix is transparent and then it turns muddy as the solvents are eliminated.
As you can see the parameters in play are many; you could try to change some of them to improve the features of the solution you need for your specific experiments.
Best regards, Pierluigi Traverso
Dear Angelina,
you may can try to dissolve PMMA with THF that is also good a solvent for PLLA< and PCL.
however, in general you need time to dissolve high Mw PMMA powder.
good luck
best
stefano
In addition to above said good recommendations. It looks that you used too high content of PMMA that could cause gelling. So try lower concentrations (1-2 wt.% or even lower, it depends on molecular weight of the polymer). Maybe you have used this, but I recommend it just in case: add the powder by small portions and wait until the each polymer portion has dissolved.
You may want to alternatively consider ethyl acetate, as it seems a rather workable solvent for the mentioned goal of mixing PMMA with PLA/PCL.
Carlos Araújo Queiroz Thank you for the recommendation! Do you have any journals or resources how much is the concentration of PMMA needed with molecular weight 350.000 in ethyl acetate? Thank you.
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