Polymerization of hydrophilic monomers, such as acrylamide, in the confinement of lyotropic liquid crystalline phases of nonionic surfactants produces gels with variable pore architecture in the hundreds of nanometers to micrometers size range. The porous gels are characterized by scanning electron microscopy after critical-point drying. The structure of the gels depends on the type of monomer, cross-linking density, and both monomer and surfactant concentration and can be varied systematically to result in different pore morphologies with different pore sizes. In such a way it is possible to build the polymer network structure on a mesoscopic length scale, optimizing different network properties which are otherwise coupled in an opposite fashion; e.g., polymer networks with very large pore size and high mechanical stability can be made.

Amphiphilic block copolymer templates in sol-gel processes yield bicontinuous silicates with distorted hexagonal symmetry (see, for example, the transmission electron migrograph depicted on the right). The long Bragg distance of 8-13 nm combined with the high mechanical and thermal stability suggests some promising prospects for chemistry and materials science.

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Poly(acry1ic acid)s of various molecular weights and different degree of hydrophobic modification have been synthesized by a polymer analogous reaction with tetradecylamine or copolymerization with styrene. Testing these amphiphilic polymers as stabilizers for the emulsion polymerization of styrene reveals that well stabilized latices are obtained within a certain range of molecular weight and hydrophobicity. As an example, the addition of 1 wt.-% polymer with respect to the monomer allows the synthesis of polystyrene latices with a radius of about 100 nm in the absence of ionic initiators or polar comonomers.