Reversed preparation of low-density poly(divinylbenzene/styrene) foam columns coated with gold films

• A reversed fabrication of low density foam columns coated with gold films was proposed.
• The uniformity in thickness and purity of gold film are easy to be controlled.
• A compact layer is prepared through an electrophoretic deposition method.
• A low density (12 mg/cc) foam column coated with gold film is obtained.

This work aims to fabricate low-density, porous, non-conductive, structural poly(divinylbenzene/styrene) foam columns by high-internal-phase emulsion templating. We prepare these non-conductive foam columns coated with a thin gold layer by electrochemical deposition and the reversed preparation technique. As expected, the density of the foam obtained through this novel method was about 12 mg cm−3, and the thickness of the gold coating was about 3 μm. We performed field emission scanning electron microscopy to morphologically and microstructurally characterize the products and X-ray diffraction and energy dispersive spectroscopy to determine the composition of the gold coating.