I am trying to exchange water for an organic solvent. PMMA particles are in water.
Almost certainly you can't without destabilizing the situation and causing aggregation and agglomeration. The PMMA particles need to be made and stabilized in the appropriate continuous phase.
Dear Mr. Rawle,Thanks a lot for your answer!
We see exactly what you are saying in many tests. The problem to be addressed is a bit more complicated. What we actually want to do is to transfer PMMA clusters (dimers, trimers, etc., made in a water-surfactant solution by using the Pickering emulsion concept) to organic solvents. Some references say that it is possible by drying the cluster-water mixture in order to remove the water, and then to re-disperse the powder (dried clusters) into organic solvents. Definitely, we do not know how the other groups are able to manage this properly.
You need to create an emulsion of PMMA in water, and then conduct the process of reversing the phases of the emulsions. Add another type of surfactant that will convert the PMMA / water emulsion into a PMMA / hydrocarbon emulsion. The phase reversal is also affected by the surfactant concentration, the volume concentration of the components, the temperature, and the dynamics of the emulsification process. Experiment. I wish you success.
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