Nanoporous Gyroid-Structured Epoxy from Block Copolymer Templates for High Protein Adsorbability

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Polymer Chemistry
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Nanoporous materials offer unique properties for adsorption and separation.
• Creating ordered nanoporous structures with controlled textures remains a challenge.
• Epoxy-based materials are versatile but often lack inherent nanoporosity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To fabricate nanoporous epoxy with a gyroid texture.
• To investigate the use of a self-assembled block copolymer as a template.
• To evaluate the potential of the resulting material for protein adsorption.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a nanoporous polymer template via self-assembly of polystyrene-b-poly(l-lactide) (PS-PLLA) block copolymer and hydrolysis.
• Templated polymerization of epoxy within the nanochannels of the polymer template under ambient conditions.
• Multistep curing of epoxy and removal of the polymer template to yield robust nanoporous epoxy.

Main Results:

• Successful fabrication of well-defined, bicontinuous epoxy networks with gyroid texture.
• Obtained robust, through-hole nanoporous epoxy films after template removal.
• Demonstrated enhanced adsorption of lysozyme and bovine serum albumin by the nanoporous epoxy coating.

Conclusions:

• Templated polymerization using degradable block copolymers is an effective method for creating gyroid-textured nanoporous epoxy.
• The resulting robust nanoporous epoxy exhibits potential as a coating for enhancing protein adsorption applications.