Open-cellular materials can be obtained by polymerization of concentrated emulsion (high internal phase emulsion:HIPE) (polyHIPE), by which nano-objects can be assembled at macroscopic scale, resulting in ordered surface, and the material is producible in large scale. However, earlier polyHIPE technique just provides a porous framework because the small surfactants can just serve as stabilizers but cannot serve as a surface modifier. Postmodification of such polyHIPE usually appears to be tedious, arising from the inert matrix and the nature of a heterogeneous reaction. Recently, certain breakthrough in surface functionalization of polyHIPE occurs:(1) pickering stabilizing particles are tailored with surface chemistry; (2) amphiphilic block copolymers are used in place of the readily leachable small surfactant for direct preparation of surface-functionalized polyHIPE; (3) dendritic amphiphile based on hyperbranched polymers are used to one-pot prepare polyHIPE with active-groups dictated surface; (4)metal nanoparticle-dendritic amphiphile nanocomposites are used as stabilizer to prepare polyHIPE with metal nanoparticle-dictated surface. The polyHIPEs are of large size, ready separation and good recycling, high specific surface area, structured surface, thus are highly potential in supramolecular water treatment, low-leaching catalyst, etc.

Contents
1 Introduction
2 Direct surface functionalization of polyHIPE
3 Direct preparation of metal nanoparticle-decorated polyHIPE
4 Conclusion