Facile fabrication of polymer-inorganic hybrid particles with various morphologies by combination of hydrolytic condensation process with radiation seeded emulsion polymerization

A novel approach was proposed to the synthesis of poly(styrene-divinyl benzene-acrylic acid)/poly [3-(methacryloxy)propyl trimethoxysilane-styrene] [P(St-DVB-AA)/P(MPS-St)] hybrid particles. The morphologies of the particles could be tuned from raspberry-like to snowman-like by simply changing the feeding amount of second monomer or inorganic precursor. The fabricated raspberry-like ones could be modified to obtain hydrophobic surface with a contact angle up to 146°. And the snowman-like ones could be used as solid surfactant to stabilize water/styrene (W/St) mixtures, thus hierarchical porous materials could be obtained after the polymerization of monomer phase. The preliminary application of such soap-free block materials in oil-polluted water treatment was also investigated.