High-surface-area resins derived from 2,3-epoxypropyl methacrylate cross-linked with trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate

Suspension copolymerization of 2,3-epoxypropyl methacrylate (glycidyl methacrylate, GMA) and 2-ethyl-2-(hydroxymethyl)-propan-1,3-diol trimethacrylate (trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate, TRIM) has been performed in several solvents as porogens, i.e. cyclohexanol–dodecan-1-ol 9/1 v/v, octan-2-one, n-butyl acetate, p-xylene, toluene, ethyl acetate, benzonitrile, cyclohexanone and dodecan-1-ol. The GMA:TRIM ratio in the monomer mixture and the monomer:porogen ratio have been varied. The B.E.T. surface area, pore volume and number of unreacted carbon–carbon double bonds are strongly dependent on the solvent used. Both the B.E.T. surface area and the pore volume decrease rapidly with inceasing GMA:TRIM ratio when the cyclohexanol–dodecan-1-ol mixture is used as the porogen. In contrast, the monomer:porogen ratio hardly affects the B.E.T. surface area of the resulting copolymers. The pore volume decreases with increasing monomer:porogen ratio in the interval studied. A very large pore volume, i.e. 1.86 cm3 g–1, was found when octan-2-one was used as the porogen, with GMA:TRIM = 1:1 and monomer:porogen 1:3. Similarly a substantial B.E.T. surface area of ca. 175 m2 g–1 was achieved using the same GMA:TRIM ratio and octan-2-one as the porogen with monomer:porogen of 1:2.