Synthesis, characterization and improving mechanical properties of polyhipe and polymipe nanocomposites

Macroporous and open-cellular polymers are attracting specific interest for wide range of applications due to their advantages yielded from their highly porous and interconnected structure and high surface areas. Emulsion templating is the most simple and effective route for the preparation of macroporous and open-cellular polymers through high and medium internal phase emulsions (HIPEs and MIPEs). HIPEs are defined as concentrated emulsion systems consisting of a high ratio of internal or dispersed phase. The volume fraction (Ø) of the internal phase of a HIPE is usually at least 0.74 of the total emulsion volume, while for a MIPE Ø is between 0.50 and 0.73. For both of the emulsion types, in case of either one or both phases of a HIPE contains monomeric kinds, they can be cross-linked to produce open cellular polymers, so-called polyHIPEs or polyMIPEs. PolyHIPEs and polyMIPEs can be used in many different fields (ion-exchange, filtration, chromatography, tissue engineering, preparation of support materials, and etc.) due to the advantages of their large surface area and low-density. However the real industrial applications are restricted as a result of the poor mechanical properties arised from the open cellular morphology. In this thesis, two different approches were used to improve the mechanical properties of polyHIPEs and polyMIPEs: (i) by changing the monomer composition of the continious phase and (ii) by adding a nanoclay compatible with this phase. Within this respect, by adding various amounts of nanoclay in to the continious phase polyester-co-divinylbenzene (Pes-co-DVB), glycidyl methacrylate-co-1,3-butandiol dimethacrylate (GMA-co-BDDMA) and styrene-co-divinylbenzene (S-co-DVB) polyHIPE and polyMIPE nanocomposites were prepared. The morphological, mechanical and the thermal properties of the prepared nanocomposites were investigated depending on the change of continious phase composition and ratio, emulsifier type and ratio, internal phase ratio and nanoclay ratio. for this aim, the morphological features of the synthesized polyHIPEs and polyMIPEs were investigated with scanning electron microscope (SEM), while the surface areas and pore sizes were measured by Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) method. The thermal and the mechanical properties of the obtained nanocomposites were investigated by thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and universal test machine, respectively.