Issue 42, 2021

Emulsion-templated porous polymers: drying condition-dependent properties

Abstract

Macroporous materials templated using high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) are promising for various applications. To date, new strategies to create emulsion-templated porous materials and to tune their properties (especially wetting properties) are still highly required. Here, we report the fabrication of macroporous polymers from oil-in-water HIPEs, bereft of conventional monomers and crosslinking monomers, by simultaneous ring-opening polymerization and interface-catalyzed condensation, without heating or removal of oxygen. The resulting macroporous polymers showed drying condition-dependent wetting properties (e.g., hydrophilicity–oleophilicity from freezing drying, hydrophilicity–oleophobicity from vacuum drying, and amphiphobicity from heat drying), densities (from 0.019 to 0.350 g cc−1), and compressive properties. Hydrophilic–oleophilic and amphiphobic porous polymers turned hydrophilic–oleophobic simply by heating and protonation, respectively. The hydrophilic–oleophobic porous polymers could remove a small amount of water from oil–water mixtures (including surfactant-stabilized water-in-oil emulsions) by selective absorption and could remove water-soluble dyes from oil–water mixtures. Moreover, the transition in wetting properties enabled the removal of water and dyes in a controlled manner. The feature that combines simply preparation, tunable wetting properties and densities, robust compression, high absorption capacity (rate) and controllable absorption makes the porous polymers to be excellent candidates for the removal of water and water-soluble dyes from oil–water mixtures.

Graphical abstract: Emulsion-templated porous polymers: drying condition-dependent properties

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Jun 2021
Accepted
22 Sep 2021
First published
11 Oct 2021

Soft Matter, 2021,17, 9653-9663

Emulsion-templated porous polymers: drying condition-dependent properties

J. Lu, G. Gao, R. Liu, C. Cheng, T. Zhang, Z. Xu and Y. Zhao, Soft Matter, 2021, 17, 9653 DOI: 10.1039/D1SM00831E

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements