The invention provides micro- and nano-porous materials made from crosslinked polymers crystallized from supercritical fluids. The resulting products show an open cell porous network, and can be used for a variety of applications in medical fields, textiles, separation science and others. The invention also provides methods for obtaining such products.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/157,201, filed Sep. 30, 1999, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Process for the preparation of a polymeric network, in which (i) one or more polymers are made available which can be crosslinked with one another intramolecularly or intermolecularly or intra- and intermolecularly by covalent or non-covalent bonding, (ii) the conformation of at least one of the polymers is adapted to at least one template compound with obtainment of at least one preferred conformation of the at least one polymer, (iii) at least one of the preferred conformations obtained according to (ii) is fixed by crosslinkage.
In a process, a polymer is crosslinked and then reversibly bound to a template that is dissolved or suspended in a solvent. The polymer thereby acquires a conformation adapted to the template such that an interaction enthalpy between the template and the polymer is increased by more than 0.1 kcal/mole. The template can be a chemical compound or a biological structure.
The present invention relates to a method for making an open celled microcellular foam comprising providing at least one foamable polymer and a crosslinking agent in an extruder, injecting at least one blowing agent into said at least one foamable polymer and said crosslinking agent in said extruder, blending said blowing agent injected into said at least one foamable polymer and said crosslinking agent in said extruder, feeding said blended blowing agent, at least one foamable polymer and said crosslinking agent in said extruder to a die, and depressurizing said blended blowing agent, said at least one foamable polymer and said crosslinking agent.
