Microstructural Aspects of Particle-Assisted Breath Figures in Polystyrene–Alumina Hybrid Free Standing Film

Abstract

Polystyrene−alumina hybrid free standing films with amino-functionalized breath figure (BF) cavities were fabricated from a suspension of the amino-functionalized amphiphilic-modified alumina particles in polystyrene/chloroform solution by employing a one-step casting process. The role of the film thickness and the particle concentration on the BF microstructural aspects such as the pore size, pore density, amino group surface density, etc. was reported. The dry film thickness increased from 0.91 to 5.6 μm on increasing the wet film thickness from 0.2 to 1 mm. The pore size increased with the film thickness, while the pore density and the porosity decreased. Relatively uniform pore size was observed for an ∼3 μm thick film in which the moderately ordered BF pattern was more or less maintained up to a particle concentration of 5 wt % of the polystyrene content. While the 0.91 μm thick film exhibited through-pore structure, concavities were formed in thicker films. The particle-assisted BF formation favored the formation of amino-functionalized cavities. The surface density of the amino functionality reduced on increasing the film thickness, whereas the density increased with the particle concentration. The implications were discussed.

Ordered Honeycomb‐Pattern Membrane†

“…Among them, the design of new film‐forming materials or the research on the modification, not only has more important theoretical significance, but has more engineering application value. [ 9,17,18 ] Therefore, it is necessary to present an overall review of the membrane materials on the basis of recent reports. Currently, there are amphiphilic polymers, [ 19,20 ] star‐shaped polymers, [ 10,21,22 ] comb‐shaped polymers, [ 23 ] rod‐ linear copolymers, [ 24,25 ] hyper‐branched polymers, [ 26 ] graft polymers, [ 27 ] organic‐inorganic hybrid polymers, [ 28,29 ] inorganic nanoparticles, [ 30 ] oxidized clusters, [ 31 ] and small molecule compounds [ 32 ] used in the preparation of porous membranes.…”

Self-Assembly of Patterned Porous Films from Cyclic Polystyrenes via the Breath Figure Method

“…In this method, uniform water droplets serve as templates via nucleation, growth, and arrangement driven by the evaporation of a volatile solvent . After solidification and further evaporation, exquisite honeycomb-patterned porous films can be prepared and utilized as microreactors, , separation membranes, , cell culture substrates, , superhydrophobic materials, − lithography templates, , and others. − …”

Honeycomb-patterned porous films fabricated via self-organization of Tb complex-loaded amphiphilic copolymers

“…Aer the evaporation of water and solvent, the ordered hexagonal lattice comes into being in order to reduce the free energy. 10,11 Aerward, countless important studies have been reported on porous lms including the hole pattern formation mechanism, [12][13][14][15] choice, design and synthesis of polymers, [16][17][18][19][20][21] effect of solvent and substrate, 22,23 environment conditions, 19,21 the reprocessing methods and applications [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][24][25][26] and so on. Although the hole pattern formation mechanism is not completely understood at present, this method is known to require precise control over the processing environment conditions, and the polymers used in BFM usually have to be specially designed and synthesized in order to obtain a good quality in pore size and distribution.…”