MICROPOROUS POLYMERIC MATERIALS BY MICROEMULSION POLYMERIZATION - EFFECT OF SURFACTANT CONCENTRATION

The microemulsion system comprising water, methyl methacrylate, a-hydr oxyethyl methacrylate, and n-dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide was poly merized and cross-linked with ethylene glycol dimethacrylate. Fast pol ymerization of the microemulsions to form solid polymers could be easi ly obtained using dibenzyl ketone as a photoinitiator. Morphology of t he resulting polymeric materials formed from bicontinuous microemulsio ns indicates the existence of open-cell type microporous structures as determined by thermogravimetric analysis. Their pore sizes, as reveal ed by field emission electron microscope, decreased on increasing the surfactant concentration. This study provides the first simple method for varying the pore size of polymeric materials by microemulsion poly merization of a suitable system using different surfactant concentrati ons.