Emulsion Templating Cyclic Polymers as Microscopic Particles with Tunable Porous Morphology

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Dingguan Wang ; Lifen Xiao ; Xinyue Zhang ; Ke Zhang ; Yapei Wang
• 刊名：Langmuir
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：February 16, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：32
• 期：6
• 页码：1460-1467
• 全文大小：596K
• ISSN：1520-5827

文摘

Cyclic polymers are a particular class of macromolecules without terminal groups. Most studies has involved their physical properties and polymer composition, while attention has rarely been paid to their emulsification in an oil–water system. Herein we synthesized a cyclic polymer with polystyrene side chains via ring-expansion metathesis polymerization and click-chemistry. This cyclic polymer was compared with linear polystyrene in order to investigate the effect of cyclic topology on preparing porous particles by emulsion templating methods. The contribution of cyclic topology to emulsification originates from the formation of hollow microspheres with the use of cyclic polymer while linear polymer only afforded solid microspheres. With addition of hexadecane as soft template, both cyclic polymer and linear polymer emulsions were successfully converted into porous particles. Superior to linear polymer, cyclic polymer enables the stabilization of emulsion droplets and the tuning of porous morphology. It is revealed that cyclic polymer with nanoring shape tends to assemble at the interfacial area, leading to the Pickering effect that decelerates the macrophase separation. Furthermore, the unique porous feature of polymer particles affords a convenient application for the detection of trace explosive.