Polymer foams, which represent a group of lightweight materials, were a �7.5 billion industry in 2010 and are expected to reach �8.6 billion by 2015. Their very high porosity and low density makes polymer foams attractive materials for both science and engineering applications. Generally, polymer foams can be classified into rigid or flexible foams, open- or closed-cell foams. Open-cell foams are used as scaffolds for tissue engineering or catalyst supports whereas closed-cell foams have found application in sandwich structures and thermal insulation. Generally, the interconnected nature of open-cell foams provides better permeability while closed-cell foams offer low or zero permeability, which results in better insulating properties. Polymer foams can be produced in various ways; by using chemical or physical blowing agents, thermally induced phase separation (TIPS), sintering of particles/microspheres or polymerising the continuous phase of suitable emulsion templates. Most bio-based monomers are highly viscous due to their high molecular weight and therefore, are not suitable for the manufacturing of large polymer/composite panels. However, this intrinsic viscosity is favourable in the production of bio-based macroporous polymers. Therefore in this work, we present a novel method of manufacturing bio-based macroporous polymers via mechanical frothing of these highly viscous bio-based monomers. This method is intrinsically scalable and environmental friendly as no surfactants or hazardous chemicals are used to create the air-liquid monomer foam. The resulting macroporous polymers (see figure 1) possess a porosity of 80%, with compression modulus and strength of up to 163 MPa and 4.88 MPa, respectively. We will also discuss the phase separation mechanism of the liquid foam and thermal degradation behaviour of the macroporous polymers. Modelling of the compression properties of these macroporous polymers using the Ashby-Gibson relationship will also be presented. In addition to this, the effect of introducing surfactants into the monomer-air interface will also be presented as it shed new insights towards pore throat formations in both air-templated and emulsion-templated macroporous polymers.

Tailored for simplicity: Air-templated biobased macroporous polymers

248th National Meeting (2014)

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