Into a clean, dry, nitrogen-purged, three liter, four neck, round bottom flask was charged 272.7 g of polybutadiene latex (Polysar PL-662) (55% polybutadiene). The flask was fitted with a stirrer, thermometer, reflux condenser and 1000 ml addition funnel. A solution was prepared by mixing 12.0 g sodium stearate, 0.9 g sodium bicarbonate, 1.5 g sodium hydroxide, 3.0 g potassium persulfate and 1322 g deionized water. The mixture was heated to 60° C. while stirring until a clear, homogeneous solution was obtained. This solution was then charged into the reaction flask to dilute the stirred polybutadiene latex. A solution containing 435.6 g of the mixture of Example 1, 164.4 g acrylonitrile and 2.7 g tert-dodecyl mercaptan was prepared and placed in the addition funnel. With stirring and the charge temperature controlled at 60° C., monomer addition was started and maintained at 0.5%/min. After all the monomer had been added, polymerization was allowed to proceed for one additional hour. The latex was sampled to determine conversion by measuring total solids content. Antioxidant was added to the latex in the form of 42 g of an 18% emulsion containing 2/1--TNPP/Irganox 1076.
