Conclusion and outlook

There is not enough space in this brief presentation of organic polyHIPE materials to describe in detail the many other applications, both academic and industrial, to which they have been put. Nevertheless, we can mention the fact that over 200 patents refer to such preparations (source Espacenet, 2012). A large proportion of the potential applications described exploit the particularly high liquid absorption capacities demonstrated by polyHIPEs in fields such as personal hygiene, cosmetics, soil and water remediation, etc. Other fields such as heterogeneous catalysis, biomaterials and tissue engineering are also the subject of numerous patents.

The development of the polyHIPE approach for the preparation of complex interconnected microcellular materials should continue to grow, thanks to its great potential combined with the ease with which it can be implemented...