Effect of mixed costabilizers on Ostwald ripening of monomer miniemulsions

The role of the mixed costabilizers of cetyl alcohol (CA) and hexadecane (HD) in retarding Ostwald ripening occurring in the three-component disperse phase monomer miniemulsions at 25 °C was investigated. The modified Kabalnov equation failed to describe the Ostwald ripening behavior. Thus, the miniemulsion disperse phase comprising monomer (methyl methacrylate (MMA) or styrene (ST)) and the mixed costabilizers of CA and HD was simply treated as a pseudo-two-component disperse phase miniemulsion system. All the results that are self-consistent with one another justify the validity of the proposed pseudo-two component disperse phase miniemulsion model. A unique feature observed in this study is the synergistic effect of the mixed costabilizers of CA and HD in retarding the Ostwald ripening process.

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► Mixture of CA and HD as mixed costabilizers to retard Ostwald ripening.
► Mixed costabilizers for stabilizing three-component disperse phase monomer miniemulsions.
► A pseudo-two-component disperse phase model satisfactorily describes three-component disperse phase miniemulsion stability behavior.
► Synergistic effect of mixed costabilizers of CA and HD observed.