Synthesis of conductive magnetic nickel microspheres and their applications in anisotropic conductive film and water treatment

Polymerization while swelling, a promising and high-efficiency technique based on seeded polymerization, was applied to synthesize monodisperse polystyrene (PS) microspheres with an average diameter of ∼6 μm. The polymerization time was reduced to only 22 hours compared to the traditional way of about 3 days. Taking the synthesized PS particles as templates, conductive shells were prepared by chemically plating nickel on the particle surface. Moreover, an anisotropic conductive film (ACF) was produced using conductive nickel microspheres as electricity transmission media. After removing the PS templates, the obtained magnetic nickel hollow microspheres have a potential application in rapid waste removal and detoxification extraction with a very simple procedure.