Study on nanometer‐size styrene‐butadiene multiblock copolymer synthesized by reactive extrusion

AbstractIn this study, a novel styrene‐b‐butadiene block copolymer was synthesized by bulk anionic polymerization in a corotating closely intermeshing twin‐screw extruder. The structure of the S/B copolymer was determined by characterization methods including FTIR, NMR, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and TEM. It is shown that the polymerized materials exhibit nanometer‐size styrene and butadiene (S/B) multiblock structure and ultrahigh elongation at break, which differs considerably from that of traditional solution polymerizing methods. In terms of the structure of the polymerized products, the mechanism of living anionic polymerization of S/B in a corotating intermeshing twin‐screw extruder is discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 91: 2265–2270, 2004