High Yield Synthesis of Polystyrene Microspheres by Continuous Long Tubular Reactor and Their Application to Antiglare Film for High Resolution Displays

Uniform polystyrene (PS) microspheres are synthesized by dispersion polymerization in a continuous long tubular reactor (CLTR) system, whereas the batch reactor system yields ∼1.8 fold smaller PS microspheres because the CLTR system has higher conversion (∼92%) and more number of nuclei at early stage than the batch system (∼68 %) due to better heat transfer. The uniform PS microspheres can be synthesized in CLTR system with high conversion if the residence time (reaction time) in CLTR is longer than the saturation time of reaction (conversion). In addition, when we apply the PS microspheres to antiglare (AG) film for high resolution displays, the AG film exhibits good pencil hardness of 4 H under 200 g load and internal, external, and total haze of 12.50, 4.38, and 16.88, respectively.