Patent ID: 7074335

Claim:
A method of producing at least one porous bead, which comprises the steps of (a) providing a first liquid phase comprising a bead matrix material and at least one essentially edgy templating particle, said particle(s) being treated with a surface modifying agent; (b) providing a second liquid phase which is immiscible with the first liquid phase; (c) contacting the first phase and the second phase under conditions resulting in an emulsion of droplets comprised of the first liquid phase dispersed in the continuous second liquid phase; (d) transforming the droplets to mesoporous beads by solidification of the liquid in said droplets; and (e) removing the templating particle(s) from the beads without causing any essential change of the surrounding bead, whereby the mesoporous beads resulting from step (d) are supplemented with one or more larger pores corresponding to the cavities left by the removed templating particle(s); whereby an essentially hierarchical network of pores is provided in each bead.