Highly Permeable Macroporous Polymers Synthesized from Pickering Medium and High Internal Phase Emulsion Templates

Various applications require macroporous materials with high permeability and a signifi cant compressive strength. For instance, the oil servicing industry is interested in utilizing a liquid medium that can be placed within the annulus between the oil bearing natural formation and a screen wrapped perforated pipe, which turns into a macroporous permeable and mechanically stable solid during a curing step. [ 1 ] The minimum requirements for the solid macroporous material are a permeability of 1 D (10 − 12 m 2 ) and a compressive strength ≥ 3.5 MPa. This challenge could be addressed by employing high internal phase emulsions (HIPE), whose continuous phase consists of monomers, as a template to produce macroporous polymers, commonly known as poly(merized)HIPEs, [ 2 ] with a well defi ned controllable pore structure. However, conventional polyHIPEs synthesized from surfactant stabilized water-in-oil (w/o) HIPEs have poor mechanical properties [ 3 , 4 ] and low permeabilities [ 5 ]