Radical capture efficiencies in emulsion polymerization

A theoretical procedure is developed that allows the importance of bimolecular termination in the aqueous phase of an emulsion polymerization to be determined. This shows that with sparinglysoluble and slowly propagating monomers like styrene, significant termination occurs in the aqueous phase at high initiator concentrations, as found experimentally. With more water soluble monomers, aqueous phase termination is likely to be small.