Recent work is reviewed in which nanoporous polyethylene, derived from a polymeric bicontinuous microemulsion, is used as a nanocasting template in the synthesis of a catalogue of porous materials, including ceramics, thermosets, conducting polymers, and hierarchical inorganic and organic materials. Their structures replicate that of the bicontinuous microemulsion precursor with high fidelity, resulting in disordered and three-dimensionally continuous arrangements of multiple phases having a characteristic length scale of ∼100 nm.
- Brad H Jones
- Timothy P Lodge
