Fabrication of Low-Density Perdeuterated p-Divinylbenzene Foams

Deuterated polymer foams as a type of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) target material can be widely used in high-gain, high-density compression fusion targets. In this paper, the deuterated p-divinylbenzene was synthesized by the Wittig-Horneew reaction firstly. The structure of deuterated p-divinylbenzene was confirmed by FT-IR, ¹H NMR and mass spectrum. Moreover, the deuterated ratio was analyzed by ¹H NMR. After that, with the deuterated p-divinylbenzene, the low density perdeuterated polymer foams were fabricated by high internal phase emulsion. The characterization results show that the deuterated ratio of foams is 95%, the average pore size is about 6 μm and the Young’s modulus is about 2.58 MPa when the density of the foam is about 25 mg/cm³.