Reactive Gelation: a new Method for Producing Polymeric Porous Materials

Porous materials are in general devised to increase the surface area exhibited by the unit mass of a given material. This is needed for a number of applications in different areas, each of which requires a certain pore size which determines the actual accessibility to the surface. Accordingly, it is important to be able to realize the accessible surface area and the corresponding pore size distribution best suited for a specific application.

Current technologies for the production of polymeric porous materials involve some kind of suspension polymerization in the presence of suitable porogenic species. In this presentation a new technology is discussed based on the coagulation/coalescence of spent polymer latexes previously prepared in emulsion polymerization without the addition of porogenic species. This methodology allows a close control of the pore size distribution particularly in the range of tens of nanometres to tens of microns. It can be used for the preparation of monolyths as well as particles of various sizes.

Various applications, starting with the support for stationary chromatographic phases for protein adsorption, are discussed.