Effect of Crosslinking Agent on Mesoporous Spherical POSS Hybrid Particles: Synthesis, Characterization and Thermal Stability

This work reports the synthesis of two novel polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) hybrid particles by investigating the effects of different crosslinking agents on morphology, porosity, chemical structure, crystalline properties, and thermal behavior of the resultant products. The hydrophilic glycerol dimethacrylate and hydrophobic ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) were used as co-monomer and crosslinking agents to obtain novel poly(POSS-co-GDMA) and poly(POSS-co-EGDMA) hybrid spherical microparticles by step-wise Pickering-like seeded polymerization. The crosslinking agent played a key role in specific surface area (SSA), average pore size, and pore volume, characterized by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller and Barrett-Joyner-Halenda analysis. When poly(POSS-co-GDMA) possess 88.0m(2)/g SSA, poly(POSS-co-EGDMA) has 3.5m(2)/g. Both particles exhibit a homogenous spherical shape in the polydisperse form and hybrid organosilica structure defined by scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The hybrid particles showed an amorphous silica composite character with thermal resistance up to 420 ?, determined by X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis. The mesoporous hybrid POSS particles could have great potential for many advanced material applications.(GRAPHICS)