Fabrication Of Functional Core/Shell Materials With Polystyrene Microspheres As Templates

In the past few years, the materials science developed along the direction of the intercross of the many scientific fields. The research was not restricted within the traditional compound, but turning to the hybrid of the organic, inorganic, macromolecule and the biomaterials. In the most hybrid materials, core/shell materials have been one of the focuses of many scientists due to their features in structure, size and composition, core/shell materials have unusual properties in optics, electronics and chemistry. The preparation of the core/shell materials is various; materials with the same structure and composing can be prepared with many methods. According the state of the system, the preparation methods composed homogeneous and the inhomogeneous methods. There are many merits such as simplicity, high repeating ration and being foreseeable for the hard template method; such a method is usually used in the preparation of core/shell materials. Nowadays, the preparation of the core/shell materials includes soft-template, hard-template, the combine of the soft-template and hard-template and the hydrothermal methods, etc.In this article, monodisperse polystyrene (PS) microspheres templates were produced by dispersion polymerization, and then we improved the surface character of the template by the simple sulfonation with concentrated sulfuric acid. Using the sulfonated PS microspheres as templates, PS/PbS core/shell and hollow PbS microspheres were prepared. Transmission electron microscope (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), infrared spectra (IR) and the fluorescence spectra were used to character the resulting products.Moreover, polystyrene/MnO2 composite microspheres were prepared by the combine of the template and the hydrothermal methods. The morphology and structure were characterized carefully. The electronic property of the sample was also examined.Finally, using the high temperature sulfonated PS as templates; PS/Fe2O3 composite hollow microspheres were prepared by one-step hydrothermal reaction. After the characterization of the morphology and the structure, it was found that the sample had good monodispersity, and composed of many Fe2O3 nanorods. According to the photocatalytic experiment, it was found that the hollow microspheres have good catalyst properties. The magnetic property was also been examined in the paper.