Epoxy Functional Porous POSS Microparticles via Templated Polymerization

Abstract

Epoxy-functional porous polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) microparticles were synthesized by templated polymerization in two-steps by using monodisperse 2µm poly(GMA) seed latex particles as a template. In the first step, templated polymer latex was swollen in emulsion medium to obtain micron size porous POSS particles. In the second step, the hydrophobic monomers metharcyl-POSS, epoxy-functional monomer glycidyl methacrylate (GMA), the crosslinking agent GDMA and the thermal imitator diffused into the swollen template in emulsion medium for free-radical polymerization. The resultant poly(POSS-co-GDMA-co-GMA) microparticles were obtained in polydisperse form due to the high molecular weight of the silica cage core of POSS created difficulty in the diffusion step. However; monodisperse composite microparticles were obtained around 5.8 ± 0.4µm in size via centrifugal post-separation. The spherical fine porous hybrid structure was fully characterized as morphological, thermal, chemical composition, and crystalline form by SEM, TGA, FTIR, and XRD respectively.