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In this article, a wide range of latexes are evaluated as possible foam stabilizers. These include near-monodisperse, poly(N-vinyl pyrrolidone)-stabilized polystyrene PNVP-PS latexes with diameters ranging from 170 nm to 1.62 microm, submicrometer-sized poly(ethylene glycol)-stabilized polystyrene PEGMA-PS latex particles, a PNVP-stabilized poly(4-bromostyrene) PNVP-PBrS latex with a mean diameter of 870 nm, two PNVP-stabilized poly(methyl methacrylate) PNVP-PMMA latexes with mean diameters of 730 nm and 1.20 microm, a PNVP-stabilized poly(2-hydroxypropyl methacrylate) PNVP-PHPMA latex with a mean diameter of 630 nm, and a charge-stabilized anionic PS latex of 220 nm diameter. The effect of varying the particle size, latex concentration, and latex surface composition on foam stability were studied in detail. The larger PNVP-PS latexes, the PNVP-PBrS, and the two PNVP-PMMA latexes gave highly stable foams, whereas PEGMA-PS, PNVP-PHPMA, and the charge-stabilized PS latex produced either no foams or foams with inferior long-term stabilities. Scanning electron microscopy studies revealed hexagonally close-packed latex arrays in the walls of the dried foam, which leads to localized moiré patterns being observed by optical microscopy. Moreover, these dried foams are highly iridescent in bright transmitted light.
Fujii et al. (Wed,) studied this question.