Macroporous Materials: High‐Internal‐Phase Emulsion Tailoring Polymer Amphiphilicity towards an Efficient NIR‐Sensitive Bacteria Filter (Small 37/2015)

On page 4876, Y. Wang and co-workers demonstrate a novel bacteria filter which combines the advantages of size filtration by macroporous structure and a photothermal effect by an NIR-sensitive material. A strategy based on tuning the amphiphilicity of an originally hydrophobic block copolymer is proposed, leading to successful preparation with 95 vol% internal volume, in which a concentration of as low as 4 wt% is needed. Open-cell macroporous monoliths templated from this exhibit remarkable performance for bacteria filtration after coating with polypyrrole nanoparticles.