Nanoemulsion polymerization and templating: Potentials and perspectives

Abstract

The current study aims to provide an outlook on the nanoemulsions templating method by discussing their potentials to produce different polymers and evaluating challenges that might be posed during emulsification and polymerization. Tunable properties such as controllable droplet size, volume fraction, composition, and interdroplet interactions provide tools for controlling the structure of nanoemulsions and nanoemulsion-templated polymers. Therefore, these properties along with a phase diagram including the liquid, gel, attractive glass, and repulsive glass states of nanoemulsions are discussed in this Perspective. Although the synthesis of nanoparticles is the main application of nanoemulsion templating in the literature, polymerization of monomers in the continuous phase of nanoemulsions has potential to expand their applications and produce complex structured porous polymers. Nanoemulsion characteristics can also be tuned to produce porous polymers with desirable properties. This Perspective also looks at multiple nanoemulsions with multi-phase droplets, which recently have become of great interest for producing nanoparticles with complex morphologies. Multiple nanoemulsions and their templating provide new avenues for certain applications particularly in pharmaceutical and nanotechnology industries.