Open porous polyester composites were prepared by the crosslinking of unsaturated polyester resin and divinylbenzene in water‐in‐oil concentrated emulsion templates with the presence of a conventional surface modified montmorillonite nanoclay. Medium and high internal phase emulsions with either 55 or 80 wt% of internal phase were used as templates. The effect of monomer composition, emulsifier concentration, and internal phase amount on the emulsion stability and the morphology of the resulting porous composites were investigated. Moreover, the morphological properties of the resulting composites were determined depending on the amount of nanoclay loading. It was found that the morphological features, namely surface area and cell diameter, were altered dramatically with the amount of nanoclay loading. An important part of the research was focused on the variation of mechanical and thermal properties with the incorporation of nanoclay particles. The mechanical properties were improved both with the nanoclay incorporation and the use of medium internal phase emulsions. However, the used nanoclay did not have a significant effect on the thermal stability of the resulting composites. POLYM. COMPOS., 37:1531–1538, 2016. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers

Porous polymer composites have been synthesized by polymerizing the continuous phase of styrene/divinylbenzene high internal phase emulsions in the presence of organophilic montmorillonite clay having a novel oil-based intercalant which is a reactive methacryl derivative of quaternized methyl oleate. The morphological features, thermal stability and mechanical properties, namely compression modulus and crush strength of the resulting composites have been investigated as a function of degree of nanoclay loading. All the composites reinforced with the clay were found to have improved thermal and mechanical properties as well as desired porous and interconnected structural morphology, as compared with the bare polyHIPE matrix.

Highly porous composites of poly(glycidyl methacrylateco-1,3-butanediol dimethacrylate) and pullulan were prepared as semi-interpenetrating polymer networks by cross-linking of high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs). HIPEs were prepared by using an aqueous phase made of pullulan dissolved in deionised water. Instead of conventional cross-linkers such as divinyl benzene, 1,3-butanediol dimethacrylate was used as a flexible co-monomer. Morphological and mechanical properties of the porous composites with an initial pullulan loading ranging from 1 to 10 wt % have been investigated. Resulting composites were tested in terms of uniaxial compression stress and it was found out that the use of pullulan and flexible comonomer in the HIPE preparation increases the compression modulus from 13.53 to 30.8 MPa. Textural analyses of the resulting composites show that in all cases open cellular foams composed of primary cavities (112-74 lm) connected with secondary interconnected pores were produced with a specific surface area in the range of 1.7-3.0 m 2 g 21 . In addition, the influence of using porogen in the oil phase was investigated. It was found that using a porogen reduces the cavity size diameter from 112 to 20 mm and increases the compression modulus from 13.53 to 47.06 MPa.

Epoksi fonksiyonel gruplara sahip gözenekli polimer küreleri, glisidil metakrilat (GMA) ile esnek gruplara sahip 1,3-bütandiol dimetakrilat (BDDMA) karışımından oluşan monomer bileşimi içinde sulu iç faz çözeltisinin dağıtılması ile elde edilen öncü konsantre emülsiyon kalıpları kullanılarak sentezlendi. Bu amaçla, sulu pullulan çözeltilerinin iç faz olarak kullanılması ile GMA ve BDDMA'nın yüksek iç fazlı emülsiyonları (high internal phase emulsions, HIPEs) hazırlandı. Polimerleştirme adımı, öncü HIPE'lerin sekonder bir sulu ortamda dağıtılması ile elde edilen su/yağ/su (w/o/w) sistemleri içerisinde gerçekleştirildi. Öncü emülsiyon kalıplarının hazırlanmasında farklı konsantrasyonlardaki pullulan çözeltileri iç faz olarak kullanılarak, her bir bağımsız polimer fazın veya ağın kendi özelliklerini koruduğu ve birbirleri ile sinerjik bir etkileşim içinde olduğu yarıgeçişimli bir polimerik ağ yapısı elde edildi. Elde edilen polimer (poliHIPE) kürelerinin morfolojik özellikleri mikroskobik görüntüleme teknikleri ile incelendi. Spesifik yüzey alanları ise elde edilen kürelerin N2 adsorpsiyon/desorpsiyon izotermlerine Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) denklemi uygulanarak hesaplandı.