The effect of molecular weight on the porosity of hypercrosslinked polystyrene

Abstract

A series of hypercrosslinked linear polystyrenes with different degree of polymerisations has been synthesised by a Friedel–Craft alkylation reaction using formaldehyde dimethyl acetal (FDA) as an external crosslinker. The surface areas of the networks could be tuned by the degree of polymerisation (DP) of the linear polystyrenes. Surface areas up to 974 m² g⁻¹ could be obtained.