Emulsion Templated Hierarchical Macroporous Polymers

Emulsion templating is a versatile approach used for the preparation of hierarchical macroporous polymers with well-defined porosity. The basis of the approach is constituted on using concentrated emulsions as template for the creation of porous structures. With this approach, hierarchical polymer foams are usually produced by using high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) as precursor templates. HIPEs, is defined as the emulsions having internal phase volume fraction (O) greater than 0.74. When a HIPE is prepared to contain monomer(s), polymerization of the monomer containing phase result in polymers known as polyHIPEs. PolyHIPEs are macroporous polymers exhibiting low density. The pore structure of polyHIPEs can be easily altered by variating the precursor HIPE templates. Thereby, polyHIPEs are good candidates to be used in the applications such as adsorption, chromatography, catalysis, tissue engineering, and storage of gases, liquids, and energy, where high permeability and shape stabilization is required. In this respect, numerous polyHIPEs exhibiting different chemistries and properties developed by scientists are in serve of the above-mentioned fields. To expand the use of polyHIPEs in industrial applications, it is necessary to adopt the emulsification process and properties of HIPEs, polymerization strategies and properties of polyHIPEs, and approaches and methods for their development. Regarding this, a retrospective analysis of HIPEs and polyHIPEs can be the key to developing novel materials for future applications.