Pore geometry and size uniformity dictate the performances and durability of porous materials in diverse applications. There is a constant demand for methodologies to design and realize tailor-made pores with sizes down to sub-100 nm with affordable expense. Block copolymers (BCPs) which undergo microphase separation allow the accessibility of a library of well-defined, periodical mesoscale structures. Controlled conversion of these structures which are the dispersed phases embedded in the matrix would yield porosity with the geometries coining the parent structures. In this work, we fabricate ordered porous materials with different pore geometry by incorporating 3-n-pentadecylphenol (PDP) onto the P4VP moieties of cylinder-forming polystyrene-b-poly (4-vinylpyridine) (PS-b-P4VP) through hydrogen bonding, followed by ethanol treatment. Well-defined, periodical porous structures with the pore geometry of cylinders, lamellae, and gyroid are achieved by tuning the ratio of PDP and P4VP as well as the evaporation rate of the solvent in which the BCP and PDP are dissolved. Particularly, we obtain membranes with perpendicular through pores with length up to 65 microns, and prove their pore size can be adjusted in a larger scale by ethanol treatment at elevated temperatures. Ethanol treatment washes out the H-bonded PDP on one hand and swells the P4VP domains. Such membranes with adjustable thickness are obtained by controlling the evaporation of solvent, and the surface morphology transformations are investigated in this evaporation process for the first time.

Periodical mesoporous polymers from H-bonding-modulated block copolymer supramolecules

251st National Meeting (2016)

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