Intercalation compounds of styrene and quaternary ammonium montmorillonite were prepared by immersion of the clay in styrene monomer. The intercalation of stearyltrimethylammonium (CH3(CH2)17N(CH3)3+)-montmorillonite and styrene showed an expansion of the basal spacing to a constant value of ∼32 Å after immersion for 10 days. After polymerization, the amount of polystyrene in the interlayer region was determined by thermal gravimetric analysis. Styrene adsorption initially increased with increasing quaternary ammonium cation and then became approximately constant when loading of the quaternary ammonium cation exceeded 100 meq/100 g clay. The volume resistivity of the stearyltrimethylammonium-montmorilionite-polystyrene complex, which was determined with a high resistance meter, was greater than that of both the quaternary ammonium-montmorillonite and the montmorillonite, and increased in proportion to the amount of polymer adsorbed. These data indicate that polystyrene improved the insulating properties of the clay films.

To improve the lower contrast ratio of yellow-white dual color electrophoretic display cell, dispersion polymerization, and miniemulsion polymerization method were used to obtain good performance of Pigment Yellow 110 (PY110) composite particles. Crude PY110 particles and Span80 were suspended into the ethanol by dispersion method to obtain PY110-S, which were subsequently coated with styrene (St) through a mini-emulsion polymerization procedure to acquire PS/PY110-S as an electronic ink material. The modified pigments were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning electron microscope (SEM), UV–vis spectroscopy. Furthermore, the Pigment Red 146 which coated with styrene (St) through a miniemulsion polymerization procedure was doped into the PS/PY110-S. Then, the obtained mixed particles were successfully incorporated in an electrophoretic display cell. And the contrast ratio of yellow-white electrophoretic display cell was significantly improved. The contrast ratio reached 1.58.

The structural color films with enough brilliant color have attracted a special attention because of the great advantages in some practical application, which has currently become a research hot-spot. But their simple fabrication is still a great challenge. This study presents brilliant polymer opal structural color films (PSCFs) from polystyrene spheres under natural light by using a simple preparation and assembly strategy. In this strategy, the black organic dye water solution was used as the dispersion medium for polystyrene spheres, and then polystyrene spheres were rapidly fabricated to one ordered structures by the thermal assistance self-assembly method, which is cheap and commonly available. Contrast to other many structural color films irradiated by external light source under black background, the PSCFs exhibit brilliant and tunable structural colors under natural light even in a white environment, which is significant for the potential application of PSCFs in paint, photonic paper, external decoration of architectures, display, and bioassay.