ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION Polymerizations in surfactant solutions are used to produce polymers or materials that have geometries or functionalities that cannot be achieved using traditional bulk or solution polymerizations. There are two main research areas: polymerizable surfactants and monomer polymerizations templated by surfactant self-assembly. Polymerizable surfactants (i.e., amphiphilic monomers) are used to form structured materials on a nanometer scale. The structure is stabilized by the subsequent polymerization of the surfactant. This area is covered extensively in a chapter by Alain Guyot and Klaus Tauer in this volume. We will be focusing on the second area of polymerization in surfactant systems: monomer polymerization where the surfactant provides a template for the subsequent polymerization. In most cases the surfactant can be removed and the templated material remains. This type of surfactant-templated polymerization can be further divided into inorganic or organic monomer systems.
