Macroporous Materials Via Shear-Induced Reactive Gelation

This work describes a method for the continous production of porous polymer materials using the principle of Reactive Gelation. Starting from a poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) latex with particle diameter of one hundred nanometres, aggregates are prepared in a continuous aggregation reactor by shear rates on the order of 500’000 1/s. These aggregates are then thermally hardened to strengthen their mechanical resilience. Their mass scaling was found to obey a power low with fractal dimension of 2.4-2.7, depending on process conditions and the effect of process parameters on conversion and material properties investigated. BET specific surface areas ranged from 20 to 40 m²/g. The material was packed into columns and tested chromatographically. The column efficiency was found to be strongly perfusive, i.e. independent of linear velocity, at high reduced velocities as is the case for large biomolecules.