Templated monodisperse latex

The method relies on the properties of monodispersed latex/silica spheres to assemble, through colloidal interactions, into a well-ordered, face-centered-cubic colloidal crystal upon centrifugation, sedimentation, electrophoresis, oscillatory shear or pressing in the form of pellets. Following pre-assembly of the colloidal crystal template, the precursor is infiltrated into the empty octahedral and tetrahedral interstitial sites that exist between the spheres. After conversion of the precursor to the desired material inside the voids, the template is removed leaving... 

Polystyrene beads (PS) are employed as physical templates for macropore. The emulsifier-tee emulsion polymerization method used here allows for the synthesise of nearly monodisperse latex beads of PS in the size of ca. 100 nm [10]. PS beads were prepared using 700 ml degassed water, 54 ml styrene monomer, 0.65 g potassium persulhite as initiator, and 20 ml divinylbenzene as cross-linkmg agent. PS beads were obtained at 70°C and 350 rpm, and dried under ambient condition. Aluminum fec-butoxide and stearic acid were separately dissolved in parent alcohol,. rec-butyl alcohol, at room tempature, and then the two solutions were mixed. Appropriate amount of HNO solution was dropped into the mixture at a rate of I ml/min to acidify and hydrolyze the aluminum precursor. PS beads were added into aluminum hydroxide solution after stirring for 10 h. The final pH of the reactant was approximately 7. Organic templates, both stearic acid and PS bead, were easily removed tern dried aluminum hydroxide by calcination. The overall synthetic procedure is as shown in Fig. 1. 

Inverse opals are formed by the use of micro- or nanospheres to template a structure containing spherical cavities. One way of doing this is to use monodisperse latex spheres. These latex spheres are prepared by slow addition of an aqueous precursor solution into a reservoir of hydrophobic silicone liquid, forming emulsion droplets. The size of the droplets is controlled by the concentration of the aqueous latex, the speed at which the suspension is stirred and ratio between the silicone liquid and latex. Polymerisation results in latex spheres of well defined size of the order of a few hundred nanometers, and spherical shape. As the concentration of the latex spheres increases to its critical concentration... 

C., Sanchez, C, and Charleux, B. (2008) Elaboration of monodisperse spherical hollow particles with ordered mesoporous silica shells via dual latex/ surfrtctant templating radial orientation of mesopore channels. Langmuir, 24, 13132-13137. 

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