Emulsion templating is an effective method to synthesise macroporous polymers with tailored pore morphology and physical properties. High or Medium Internal Phase Emulsions (HIPEs or MIPEs) with a continuous phase consisting of monomers are used as templates for the preparation of high porosity macroporous polymers, called poly(merized)M/HIPEs. A limitation of emulsion templating for the synthesis of polyHIPEs is that large amounts of water need to be removed by energy intensive drying to obtain the polymer foam. As an alternative method for producing very high porosity polymer foams we created polymerisable air filled MIPE templates by mechanical frothing particle stabilised water-in-acrylated epoxidzed soybean oil (AESO) emulsions. However, polyAESO has a relatively low glass transition temperature and poor mechanical properties. Therefore, to produce even higher performance macroporous polymers we used a renewable 2 component epoxy system in to which we introduced air by mechanical frothing. This epoxy foams can be cured into high porosity (75 - 80%) renewable macroporous polymers with excellent compression strengths and moduli. The key to foam templating to utilise the very viscous nature and very short working time of a biobased epoxy resin. We will show that the properties of the macroporous polymer can be tailored by increasing the frothing time of the epoxy resin. Unlike emulsion templating, which uses HIPEs to produce macroporous polymers the mechanical frothing technique has the advantage of creating macroporous polymers from monomers, which cannot be easily emulsified.

Air-filled emulsions and oil foam templates for renewable macroporous polymers

248th National Meeting (2014)

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