Latex imaging by environmental STEM: application to the study of the surfactant outcome in hybrid alkyd/acrylate systems.

Among other uses, latexes are a successful alternative to solvent-borne binders for coatings. Efforts are made to produce hybrid nanostructured latexes containing an acrylic phase and an alkyd phase. However, after the film-forming process, the surfactant used to stabilize these latexes remains in the film, and its location can have a drastic effect on the application properties. Among the processing parameters, the alkyd hydrophobicity can strongly influence this location. This article aims at the imaging of these surfactant molecules in two hybrid latexes with different hydrophobicity level of the alkyd resin. A first part of this paper is dedicated to the understanding of the contrast provided by the surfactant in environmental STEM imaging of latexes. Then, the influence of surfactant-polymer affinity on the surfactant location after film-forming of those hybrid alkyd/acrylate latexes is studied by this technique. It is shown that in the hybrid latex with an alkyd shell (obtained with the most hydrophilic resin), the surfactant molecules tend to remain buried in the alkyd phase. Conversely, in the hybrid latex with an acrylate shell (in the case of the most hydrophobic resin), the surfactant molecules tend to gather into islands like in pure acrylate latex films.