Synthesis and Characterization of Porous Materials Prepared by Templating in Oil-in-Alcohol Highly Concentrated Emulsions

Highly concentrated emulsions are an interesting class of emulsions characterized by an internal phase volume fraction exceeding 0.74, the critical value of the most compact arrangement of uniform, undistorted spherical droplets [1-3]. Consequently, their structure consists of deformed (polyhedrical) and/or polydisperse droplets separated by a thin film of continuous phase, a structure resembling gas-liquid foams [1-3]. In the present work, the main objective was to obtain porous materials with very high pore volume, by templating in highly concentrated emulsions. The porous materials were prepared by polymerizing in the external phase of highly concentrated emulsions, which consisted of hydrocarbon droplets dispersed in a furane derived alcohol (Oil-in-Alcohol highly concentrated emulsions). The emulsions were prepared by stepwise addition, with mechanical stirring, of the hydrocarbon (80 wt%) to the furane derived alcohol phase (20 wt%), which already contained a suitable emulsifier [4,5]. The droplet size of highly concentrated emulsions was studied by optical microscopy and by laser diffraction on emulsions diluted after preparation. The imag