Influence of Sonication on Morphological Properties of Poly(Vinyl Acetate) Particles Produced Through Suspension Polymerization

Abstract

Summary The use of polymers for various medical purposes has increased significantly over the past few years, including vascular embolization procedures. The main challenge in this particular case is the development of embolic agents with suitable properties in order to render the application safer and reproducible. In this context, particle density plays a fundamental role in vascular embolization performance, since off‐spec values can lead to undesired sedimentation of particles during the medical procedure. The influence of sonication power on the morphology of polymer particles produced through suspension polymerizations was investigated in the present work, as well as the effects of adding polymer material into the initial monomer dispersion on the final morphological properties of the product. It is shown in particular that the investigated morphological properties (density, shape, porosity) depend on the operation conditions on manners that have not been discussed in the literature.

Modeling of Suspension Copolymerization of Poly(vinyl Acetate-Co-Methyl Methacrylate) for Vascular Embolization Procedures

“…The suspension homopolymerization of vinyl acetate was performed by Azevedo in more than one condition [14,98], following a literature proportion recipe [65]. The considered conditions for the simulation are shown in Table • Experimental procedure To be able to contain the planned volume, a 1 L jacketed glass reactor was used.…”