Advanced Materials, Vol.21, No.28, 2894-2894, 2009
Conducting Nanocomposite Polymer Foams from Ice-Crystal-Templated Assembly of Mixtures of Colloids
Fabrication of conducting nanocomposite-reinforced soft polymer foams is demonstrated. These multicomponent cellular materials are built from a mixture of colloids dispersed in water by freeze-drying, thereby using ice crystals as template for the porous structure. An excluded-volume effect armors the "soft"-polymer cell walls with "hard" nanoparticles, thereby enhancing the mechanical robustness of the foams.