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.