## 3 Results and Discussion  
### Infrared Spectroscopic and Chemical Analysis  
New porous polymer microspheres containing the natural component were synthesized by the suspension method. In this approach, a composition of monomers, the initiator, and porogens is poured into the protective colloid solution to allow small droplets to be formed in which the polymerization process takes place. An advantage of this technique is that by proper selection of reactants and synthesis parameters, it is possible to obtain a polymer product with desirable properties, such as the size of polymer beads or their porosity. Figure 1a shows the molecular formulas of the terpene monomers: limonene and pinene, and the terpenoid monomer--cital. Citral is the equimolar mixture of two stereoisomers geranial and neral. These unsaturated organic compounds are able to react with divinylbenzene to form macromolecular chains. These chains are entangled with one another and some connect with others to form a three-dimensional spatial network. A simplified scheme of a hypothetical reaction between citral (geranial and neral) and divinylbenzene is presented in Figure 1b. In a cross-linked polymeric structure, the bonded chains create spaces of limited size, which determine the porosity. Figure 1: (**a**) Chemical formulas of terpen/terpenoids monomers and divinylbenzene. (**b**) A hypothetical scheme of polymerization and formation of porosity. Monomers of citral (geranial and neral) are green, and divinylbenzene are blue. In the polymeric structure, the fragments from the appropriate monomers are marked with relevant colors, and the newly formed bonds are marked in red. The reaction is similar in the case of triglycerides contained in vegetable oils. The esters of unsaturated fatty acid copolymerize with divinylbenzene give polymeric products. In the next stage, hydrolysis or transesterification can be performed to modify their chemical and physical properties. A possible course of polymerization between divinylbenzene and molecules of triglycerides (which may be included in linseed, rapeseed, and organ oils) is schematically presented in Figure 2. To not specify any oil, the molecules of triglycerides were shown as esters of glycerol and stearic, oleic, linoleic, and linelenic acids. To control and confirm the preparation of the polymers possessing designed chemical composition infrared spectra were analyzed. Figure 3 presents the collected ATR-FTIR spectra grouped into the terpene-based materials (a) and vegetable oil-based ones (b). In all spectra, bands characteristic of DVB species were observed. The two strongest at 707 and 793 cm\({}^{-1}\), and two less intense at 829, 899 cm\({}^{-1}\), resulted from out-of-plane deformation of the aromatic ring. Whereas in the plane ring, deformation bands (=C-H) were observed at about 1095, 1070, and 989 cm\({}^{-1}\). Stretching vibrations of aromatic system absorb in the range of 1625 to 1430 cm\({}^{-1}\), their in-tensities are medium. The last range of characteristic vibration covered 3000-2800 cm\({}^{-1}\), where symmetric and asymmetric alkane C-H stretching was observed. These bands confirmed the presence of aliphatic chains forming a spatial polymeric network [39; 40]. Additionally, each spectrum contained bands characteristic of functionalities or structure of the second monomer, which proved its presence in the polymer. The spectra of the terpene monomers and vegetable oils can be found in Appendix A (Figures A1-A3 and Table A1). Figure 2: General scheme of polymerization of fatty esters with divinylbenzene followed by hydrolysis. Typical vibration of the aldehyde group was observed in the range of 1740-1720 (for saturated), 1715-1695 (for aromatic), and 1705-1680 cm\({}^{-1}\) (for \(\alpha\),\(\beta\)-unsaturated ones). In the case of C-DVB (Figure 3a), aldehyde vibrations were visible as a broad band in the range of 1750-1660 cm\({}^{-1}\). The shape of the band suggested that various vibrations of the carbonyl groups contributed to its formation, including derivatives like ketones.