Poly(ionic liquid)-based monodisperse microgels as a unique platform for producing functional materials

In this work, we report the microfluidic preparation of monodisperse imidazolium-based poly(ionic liquid) (PIL) microgels with a controlled size and morphology, and show that the imidazolium units in the microgel network can be exploited as reactive sites to efficiently access desired functional materials by a simple counteranion-exchange or conversion reaction. Moreover, based on the counteranion-exchange reaction, spatio-temporal engineering of the surface of the PIL microgels could also be realized, and a new and simple strategy for the fabrication of diverse anisotropic microgels (patchy particles) with great flexibility was developed. In addition, by exploiting the convenient generation of carbene units from the imidazolium moieties, as well as the carbonizable feature of PIL, the prepared PIL microgels could be further converted into stable carbene spheres and monodisperse carbon particles. All the results show that these monodisperse PIL-based microgels can serve as a very useful platform for facilely accessing various functional materials.