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The production of high-solid-content, low-viscosity latexes is an active field in both industry and academia. The viscosity of polymer dispersions has a clear dependence on the particle size distribution (PSD). An example is the rule of thumb that a bimodal PSD enables the reduction of the viscosity with respect to monomodal systems. Despite important progress in theoretical work, not much has been done to quantitatively predict the low shear viscosity of aqueous polymer dispersions as a function of the complex PSD. In this work, the capability of a low-shear-viscosity equation to quantitatively account for the influence of both the PSD and the physicochemical characteristics of the dispersions is experimentally assessed. An analysis, consistent with theoretical concepts, of the data with semiempirical correlations is proposed. Next, with values of the parameters of the viscosity equation obtained experimentally, the effect of a latex with a 70% solid content on the low shear viscosity is examined.

Summary: A novel polymerization procedure to synthesize latex stabilized by alkali‐soluble resin (ASR) is detailed. According to this process, latexes with a high solid content and low viscosity are obtained using a substantially lower amount of ASR when compared with existing techniques. Similar rewet properties were found for the latexes obtained by a standard process and for the one obtained by the process described in this work.Comparison of the particle size distributions obtained by conventional emulsion polymerization (○) and by miniemulsion polymerization (□).magnified imageComparison of the particle size distributions obtained by conventional emulsion polymerization (○) and by miniemulsion polymerization (□).