Porous Polymers by Block Copolymer Templating

Abstract

The past decades have witnessed an increased attention in porous polymeric materials with controlled pore sizes and desired functionalities, due to the wide array of their applications. Organic porous materials display unique properties compared to their inorganic nanostructured counterparts, including tunable mechanical properties, facile functionalization, and low‐cost production. Engineering nanoporous polymers with tunable pore morphology and functionality, while maintaining high chemical and mechanical stability, still constitutes a major challenge. Interestingly, block copolymers develop well‐defined equilibrium domain morphologies. Accordingly, they can arguably be considered as ideal nanostructured precursors toward ordered nanoporous frameworks. In this regard, the selective removal of the sacrificial minority block in self‐organized block copolymers with at least two components of contrasted degradability has proven to be a robust approach toward miscellaneous nanoporous polymeric materials with controlled porosity. Alternatively, ongoing research addresses the development of more efficient and environmentally benign degradation strategies. The insertion of an easily cleavable function at the junction between the alien blocks of diblock copolymers represents a promising route, since it enables site‐specific scission between both the blocks, without requiring etching of the entire sacrificial segment. Lastly, by introducing specific functional moieties at the junction between the degradable block and the stable one of the semidegradable block copolymers, pore surface functionalization can readily be achieved.