Homopolymer-Assisted Fusions of Polymer Brushes and Block Copolymer Vesicles

Abstract

The applications of materials are closely associated with surface structures and properties. Surface coassembly of block copolymers (BCPs) and polymer brushes is an effective method to fabricate surface structures with tunable properties. The surface coassembly approach not only provides a method for the fabrication of surface structures but also provides a method for the synthesis of hybrid materials with hierarchical nanostructures. In this research, polystyrene (PS)-assisted fusions of PS brushes on silica particles and BCP vesicles in a surface coassembly process are studied. The concentrations of BCP and PS homopolymer are two key parameters in the fusion process. When the BCP concentration is held constant at 3 mg/mL, with an increase in PS concentration, aggregation of silica particles and the fusions of polymer brushes and BCP vesicles are observed. When the BCP concentration is kept at 8 mg/mL, large hybrid compound structures composed of silica particles and the fused vesicles are formed. In the surface coassembly process, the addition of PS leads to an increased volume percentage of the solvophobic component in the system. To reduce the surface energy and the unfavorable contact between the solvent and PS, silica particles with PS brushes and BCP vesicles are fused into large compound structures. A variety of hybrid materials with hierarchical macro-/mesostructures can be fabricated by using this method.

Temporally Programmed Access to Variously Structured Nanoelectrocatalysts by Unlocking “High Energy” Polymeric Composite Micelles

“…The vesicular coassemblies develop pores and curled walls after 12 h of incubation (Figure S9), resulting in compound vesicular coassemblies with an average hydrodynamic diameter of 1.13 μm (Figure S7b). Previous reports of compound vesicles mostly associated with high-concentration fusion of small vesicles, 38 but this compound vesicular coassembly is formed by wall-curling of a single vesicle, similar to block copolymers with a high packing parameter self-assembling directly. 39 After 18 h of incubation, the walls of compound vesicular coassemblies curl even further, resulting in flower-like coassemblies composed of tubular subunits (Figure 2e,f).…”

Polymer brush-based nanostructures: from surface self-assembly to surface co-assembly

“…Liu and coworkers found that hybrid compound structures composed of silica particles and the fused vesicles could be fabricated by fusion of PS brushes and PEG-b-PS BCP vesicles in the presence of ''free'' PS chains. 196 In the surface co-assembly, the concentrations of BCPs and PS homopolymers are two key factors in the fusion process. To reduce the surface energy and the unfavorable interaction between the solvent and PS, PS brushes on silica particles were fused with BCP vesicles into large hybrid structures (Fig.…”

Regulation of the nanostructures self-assembled from an amphiphilic azobenzene homopolymer: influence of initial concentration and solvent solubility parameter

“…have been widely used to control the shape, size, and microstructure of the assemblies. In addition, post self-assembly methods such as stimuli-responsive shape transformation, 27,28 hierarchical self-assembly, 29,30 and particle fusion [31][32][33] also allow the controlling over the microstructure of soft nanomaterials.…”