Tailor-made methacrylate-based polymer foams via emulsion and foamed emulsion templating

Abstract

Inspired by studies on tissue engineering, this PhD thesis aims at synthesizing and characterizing methacrylate-based polymer foams with tunable pore structures. To reach this goal, two templating routes, namely emulsion templating and foamed emulsion templating, were combined with microfluidics. Two different templating routes were chosen to get access to different pore sizes without changing the monomer. The monomer used was 1,4-butanediol dimethacrylate (1,4-BDDMA). The liquid templates and the solid polymer foams were characterized via light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to prove the “templating effect”.