Synthesis of polystyrene colloidal nanoparticles and investigation of their hydrophobic properties on the flotation of phosphorus

Abstract Polystyrene is a synthetic polymer and one of the most widely used polymers in various industries, which is produced in different ways from styrene monomer. This research aims to synthesize polystyrene nanoparticles (NPS) by emulsion polymerization and to investigate their effect on phosphorus flotation. For this purpose, styrene monomer, dodecyl sulfate, and potassium persulfate were used. In the following, the impact of two parameters, including the volume of styrene monomer and reaction time, on the characteristics of nanoparticles was investigated with different analyses. X‐ray diffraction analysis results showed that NPS was formed with an amorphous structure. Increasing the monomer volume increased NPS particle size to 70 nm, accelerating nuclei growth. Expanding the time also had a similar effect and increased the size of the nanoparticles. By dynamic light scattering analysis, the size distribution of the synthesized NPS was about 74.3 nm with narrow dispersion. The wettability of NPS was also investigated and the sample synthesized in 6 h with 9 cc of styrene monomer had the highest wetting angle of about 106°. In the direct flotation of phosphorus, using NPS increased the grade of phosphorus up to 15.1% (34.6% P 2 O 5 ).