Preparation and recyclable catalysis performance of functional macroporous polyHIPE immobilized with gold nanoparticles on its surface

High internal phase emulsion polymerization was adopted for preparing macroporous polymeric monoliths, polyHIPE–Br (PHIPE–Br). Macroporous PHIPE–Br was used as the initiator to initiate the atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA), resulting in a dense coating of polymers on the PHIPE surface and PHIPE–PGMA was obtained. Through a ring-opening addition reaction with TETA, a surface amino-polymer modified functional macroporous PHIPE–PGMA–TETA, was prepared conveniently. Gold nanoparticles could be easily in situ prepared and immobilized on the surface of PHIPE–PGMA–TETA. Characterization by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), EDX-mapping and TGA showed that PHIPE–PGMA–TETA was immobilized by the gold nanoparticles, and presented good catalytic properties. Moreover, the macroporous catalytic material, PHIPE–PGMA–TETA/Au NPs, presented recyclable catalytic performance without any decrease in activity. The materials and methods to form the monoliths and immobilize metal nanoparticles were simple and efficient, thus, opening new possibilities for highly porous PHIPE in catalysis applications.