Generation of silicone poly-HIPES with controlled pore sizes via reactive emulsion stabilization

TL;DR

This paper presents a reactive emulsion stabilization method to produce macrocellular silicone polymers with controlled pore sizes, demonstrating precise control over cell size and volume fraction, applicable to various polymer systems.

Contribution

It introduces a reactive blending technique to prevent coalescence in silicone emulsions, enabling controlled pore size and volume fraction in macrocellular polymers.

Findings

Controlled pore sizes between 0.2-2mm achieved.

Stable emulsions with 0.1-40% continuous phase volume fractions.

Method applicable to various polymeric systems.

Abstract

Macrocellular silicone polymers are obtained after solidification of the continuous phase of a PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) emulsion, which contains PEG (polyethylene glycol) drops of sub-millimetric dimensions. Coalescence of the liquid template emulsion is prohibited by a reactive blending approach. We investigate in detail the relationship between the interfacial properties and the emulsion stability, and we use micro- and millifluidic techniques to generation macro-cellular polymers with controlled structural properties over a wider range of cell-sizes (0.2-2mm) and volume fractions of the continuous phase (0.1-40%). This approach could easily be transferred to a wide range of polymeric systems.