High internal water phase double emulsions were used as the templates to prepare interconnecting porous poly(styrene-divinyl benzene-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) microspheres which were applied in the load of catalysts and the adsorption of heavy metal ions.First

high internal water phase double emulsions were prepared via phase inversion of water-in-oil high internal phase emulsions (W/O HIPEs) stabilized solely by 12-acryloxy-9-octadecenoic acid (AOA) through increasing the content of water phase.The polymerization of these emulsions was then initiated by either -ray irradiation or chemical initiators.Scanning electrical microscopy (SEM) images showed that interconnecting porous microspheres were reached by using -ray irradiation

while only hollow microspheres were obtained by using chemical initiators.After hydrolysis

interconnecting porous microspheres prepared by -ray irradiation were modified with carboxyl groups

which were used to adsorb Cu2+ ions.It was found that the adsorption capacity of Cu2+ first increased and then decreased with the increasing of pH

and the maximum adsorption capacity was 175 mg/g at pH=5.In addition

using in situ reduction

interconnecting porous microspheres were loaded with Pd nanoparticles which were used to catalyze the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde.Thermogravimetric analysis and TEM results showed that Pd@hydrolyzed porous microspheres had higher catalytic efficiency due to the higher load of uniform dispersed Pd nanoparticles

while Pd@unhydrolyzed porous microspheres had lower catalytic efficiency owing to the lower load of aggregated Pd particles.