Morphology variation of porous polymer gels by polymerization in lyotropicsurfactant phases

Polymerization of hydrophilic monomers, such as acrylamide, in the confinem ent of lyotropic Liquid crystalline phases of nonionic surfactants produces gels with variable pore architecture in the hundreds of nanometers to micr ometers size range. The porous gels are characterized by scanning electron microscopy after critical-point drying. The structure of the gels depends o n the type of monomer, crosslinking density, and both monomer and surfactan t concentration and can be varied systematically to result in different por e morphologies with different pore sizes. In such a way it is possible to b uild the polymer network structure on a mesoscopic length scale, optimizing different network properties which are otherwise coupled in an opposite fa shion; e.g., polymer networks with very large pore size and high mechanical stability can be made.