Design of macroporous photo-cationically cured resorcinol-based epoxy resins coupled to a solid template technique

This paper presents for the first time an eco-friendly combination of cationic photopolymerization and the solid template technique to obtain macroporous epoxy resins from resorcinol diglycidyl ether (RDGE) with defined cell size and distribution. The polymerization was performed by cationic polymerization under UV irradiation in the presence of NaCl particles template sintered through the spark plasma sintering process (SPS). After removal of NaCl by water, a porous material with interconnected pores was obtained. The influence of processing parameters, i.e., reactant contents, UV irradiation time, and post-curing conditions on the reticulation achievement and the thermomechanical behavior have been pointed out. Mechanical, physical, acoustic and morphological properties were deeply investigated. For instance, the specific compressive modulus is of 50.9 MPa cm³.g⁻¹ for a density of 0.224 g.cm⁻³ and the glass transition is around 137 °C, which makes this system an interesting alternative for sustainable building materials.