Synthesis of poly(vinyl acetate)-based magnetic polymer microparticles

This work provides details on the synthesis of poly(vinyl acetate)/poly(vinyl alcohol) intended for medical applications such as intravascular embolization procedures and hyperthermia treatment of injured areas. The proposed method showed to be very efficient for the synthesis of micro-sized magnetic particles. The hydrolyzed polymeric material presented thermal stability higher than that observed in pure poly(vinyl acetate) particle and the magnetic polymeric materials exhibited better thermal stability. It was also shown that the morphology of the precursor poly(vinyl acetate) is preserved when mild reaction conditions (temperature and alkoxide concentration) are adopted during the hydrolysis reaction. Furthermore, it was noticed that Na2SO4 promotes morphological control, minimizing the solubility of poly(vinyl acetate) in methanol and poly(vinyl alcohol) in water. DSC analyses showed that polymer particles with core–shell type morphology were properly obtained, exhibiting two distinct glass transition temperatures, characterized by the presence of pure poly(vinyl alcohol) in the shell and pure poly(vinyl acetate) in the core of the particles.

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► Micro-sized polymeric particles exhibiting good magnetic response were obtained.
► Core–shell PVA/PVAc/Fe3O4 particles were synthesized by suspension polymerization.
► DSC exhibited two distinct Tgs, characterized by PVAc (core) and PVA (shell).
► The partially hydrolyzed polymeric materials presented good thermal stability.