Direct synthesis of polymerizable surfactant-stabilized nanoparticles: the macromolecular monomers for fabricating nanoparticle-polymer composites

Incorporation of inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) into polymers is the current means for enhancing the performance of polymer materials, the key to which is the increase of compatibility between NPs and polymer media. In this paper, the polymerizable surfactant octadecyl-p-vinylbenzyldimethylammonium chloride (OVDAC) is synthesized and used as a capping agent for direct synthesis of various metal NPs, for instance Au, Ag, Pd, and Pt, and semiconductor NPs, for instance ZnS, CdS, and PbS. The preformed OVDAC-stabilized NPs are lipophilic and act as macromolecular monomers in the copolymerization with lipophilic monomers.