Porous copolymer film materials by using free radical copolymerization and its side reaction product, homopolymer, as template

The present report introduces a simple and novel strategy for producing an ordered porous copolymer film material by using its side reaction product, homopolymer, in free radical copolymerization as template. In general, homopolymers are side products in free radical copolymerization, but herein we try to make good use of them (e.g. PMMA). In this paper, we optimized the graft copolymerization of gelatin and MMA via traditional free radical initiation. PMMA is a side product and act as a template to create ordered nanoporous structure. Furthermore, this approach has been successfully extended to chitosan-g-PMMA and gelatin-g-PS systems. The present novel approach provides a new opportunity by using the side product in copolymerization to fabricate ordered porous structure film materials. The porous gelatin-g-PMMA film is especially suitable as surfaces for cell growth due to its good biocompatibility, mechanical properties and multilayer structure.