Highly porous open-cellular monoliths from 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate based high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs): Preparation and void size tuning

Preparation of highly porous (up to 80% pore volume) open-cellular monolithic cross-linked polymers from 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate is reported. Oil-in-water and water-in-oil high internal phase emulsions are applied as porosity templates, resulting in an interconnected porous structure with void diameters between 550 nm and 18 mu m. Significantly larger voids were obtained in the case of oil-in-water emulsions (between 5 and 18 mu m) as opposed to water in oil emulsions (approx 600 nm). Controlled coarsening exploiting limited kinetical stability of emulsions was used to obtain monoliths with larger voids, diameters being enlarged 3-fold.