Recognising the rapid shift towards environmentally friendlier polymers and processing techniques, we synthesised a series of macroporous polymer nanofibril nanocomposites. Instead of classical emulsion templating to produce macroporous polymers, which requires a drying step to remove the aqueous template phase, we created foam templates by mechanical frothing acrylated epoxidzed soybean oil. This foams could be polymerised to produce porous 3D structures. We also show that hierarchical polyAESO nanocomposites with multi-modally distributed pores that are permeable, can be produced from water-in-AESO emulsion templates stabilised by low concentrations of oleic acid functionalised nanoparticles, which were mechanically frothed and then polymerised. This introduces an additional degree of pore hierarchy and further increase the porosity of the polyHIPEs. The hierarchical organisation of pores was seen to maximise the mechanical properties of resulting macroporous structures.

Developing hierarchical macroporous nanocomposites the green way

245th National Meeting (2013)

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