Preparation of porous polyester composites via emulsion templating: Investigation of the morphological, mechanical, and thermal properties

Abstract

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

Preparation of highly interconnected porous polymer microbeadsviasuspension polymerization of high internal phase emulsions for fast removal of oil spillage from aqueous environments

“…21,22 This HIPE templating method is exible and easy to control pore structure and size as well as porosity by varying the compositions of the emulsions, compared with other methods for the fabrication of porous polymers. [23][24][25] In previous reports, polyHIPEs are fabricated by various monomer precursors, such as styrene, 26,27 4-vinylbenzyl chloride, 28 methyl methacrylate, 27,29 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate, 30 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, 31 stearyl methacrylate, 32 hexauorobutyl acrylate, 33 butyl acrylate, 34 and so on, giving mechanical properties that range from elastomeric to extremely tough and rigid. 35 Because of their high porosity, large surface area, open and interconnected pores, polyHIPEs have great potential in the eld of separation.…”

Properties and applications of nanoclay reinforced open‐porous polymer composites

“…The formed bead like particles can be explained by the monomer molecules diffused to the internal phase (deionized water). The secondary particles seen in the cavity structures are most probably due to polymerization of the diffused monomers there . In addition, from the cavity size calculations done according to SEM images, average cavity sizes of the polyHIPEs obtained from the HIPEs prepared by 15 and 20 vol % emulsifier (samples E15 and E20, respectively) were found to be 7.96 and 12.89 µm, respectively.…”

PolyHIPE composite based‐form stable phase change material for thermal energy storage

“…On the other hand, relatively poor mechanical properties limited usage of them in industrial scale. The studies in recent years mostly condensed on improving mechanical properties of polyHIPEs by designing of composites incorporation of nanoparticles 50‐53 …”