Interfacial Polymerization: From Chemistry to Functional Materials.

Confining the chemical reaction at the liquid-liquid or liquid-air interface, interfacial polymerization exhibits a strong advantage in the controllable fabrication of films, capsules and fibers as separation membrane and electrode materials. Recent development of technologies and polymer chemistry brings new vigor to the interfacial polymerization. Here, we comb the history of interfacial polymerization along with the development of polymer chemistry, illustrate the recent development of interfacial polymerization in terms of the polymerization types: interfacial polycondensation, interfacial polyaddition, interfacial oxidative polymerization, interfacial polycoordination, interfacial supramolecular polymerization and some others, and the accordingly emerging functional materials and outlook the challenges and opportunities brought by new technologies for interfacial polymerization, which will bring some novel insights to its further development. We believe that interfacial polymerization will keep on developing and producing a series of fascinating functional materials.