Simultaneous synthesis and chemical functionalization of emulsion-templated porous polymers using nitroxide-terminated macromolecular surfactants

The design of functional 3D macroporous monoliths has become a necessity for a wide range of applications. The traditional post-modification strategies of porous materials are efficient but often consist of tedious multi-step processes. This work describes a straightforward macromolecular surfactant-assisted method for producing chemically functionalized macroporous polyHIPEs with interconnected structures. Accordingly, high internal phase emulsion-templated polymerizations were implemented in the presence of SG1-terminated amphiphilic copolymers prepared by nitroxide-mediated radical polymerization (NMP). The latter served as both stabilizers and functionalizing agents upon thermal activation of its terminal alkoxyamine and covalent anchoring of the released radical copolymer onto the walls of the scaffold. The effect of the polymerization temperature on the functionalization and openness of the final porous materials was explored. As a result, a range of open-cell styrene and acrylate-based polyHIPEs chemically grafted with PEO were obtained. Moreover, polyHIPEs were also decorated with alkyne-bearing PEO and subsequently modified via CuAAc click chemistry in order to demonstrate the potential of this macromolecular surfactant-assisted functionalization method.