(122e) Effect of Interdroplet Interactions on Pore Interconnectivity of Polymerized High Internal Phase Emulsions

Polymerized high internal phase emulsions, known as polyHIPEs, are porous materials obtained from crosslinking of continuous phase of high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs). After polymerization, the removal of internal phase droplets leaves voids in the polymer structure, which are interconnected through the openings (called windows or pore throat) on the polymer wall between the neighboring voids. The polyHIPEs are a good candidate for different applications such as absorbents, membranes, and scaffolds in tissue engineering, owing to the high porosity and interconnectivity. The formation of the windows is a complex process and it has not been well understood. In this work, different surfactants are employed to obtain the polyHIPEs with different morphologies since they induce different interdroplet interactions. The results indicate that the interdroplet interaction has a significant effect on the relative window size of polyHIPEs.