Porous architecture–driven electroless nickel plating in conventional and pickering PolyHIPEs

Polymerized high internal phase emulsions (polyHIPEs) offer highly porous and tunable architectures that are promising as templates for functional coatings. In this study, polyHIPE thin films were fabricated using either conventional surfactant-stabilized emulsions (Hypermer B246) or Pickering emulsions stabilized by isobornyl acrylate (IBOA) microparticles, and subsequently subjected to electroless nickel plating to evaluate the effect of emulsion stabilization on metal infiltration. SEM, EDX, and XRD analyses revealed that conventional polyHIPEs featured smaller, more uniform pores, resulting in surface-localized nickel deposition due to rapid pore closure. In contrast, Pickering polyHIPEs displayed larger, irregular pore structures. Although these structures exhibited restricted interconnectivity compared to conventional foams, their macroscopic pore dimensions facilitated deep mass transport, enabling uniform internal metallization. These results highlight that pore size magnitude can override interconnectivity limitations in diffusion-controlled plating processes, offering critical design insights for developing metal–polymer hybrids for applications such as catalysis and Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) shielding.