Polymerization Induced Microphase Separation for the Fabrication of Nanostructured Materials

Abstract

Polymerization induced microphase separation (PIMS) is a strategy used to develop unique nanostructures with highly useful morphologies through the microphase separation of emergent block copolymers during polymerization. In this process, nanostructures are formed with at least two chemically independent domains, where at least one domain is composed of a robust crosslinked polymer. Crucially, this synthetically simple method is readily used to develop nanostructured materials with the highly coveted co‐continuous morphology, which can also be converted into mesoporous materials by selective etching of one domain. As PIMS exploits a block copolymer microphase separation mechanism, the size of each domain can be tightly controlled by modifying the size of block copolymer precursors, thus providing unparalleled control over nanostructure and resultant mesopore sizes. Since its inception 11 years ago, PIMS has been used to develop a vast inventory of advanced materials for an extensive range of applications including biomedical devices, ion exchange membranes, lithium‐ion batteries, catalysis, 3D printing, and fluorescence‐based sensors, among many others. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the PIMS process, summarize latest developments in PIMS chemistry, and discuss its utility in a wide variety of relevant applications.

Lobster-Inspired Chitosan-Derived Adhesives with a Biomimetic Design

“…As shown in Figure f, the integration and insertion of SiO 2 –NH 2 @OPG into the chains of CS molecules weakened the chain-to-chain entanglement through covalent cross-linking via phenolamine chemistry, which may have led to the formation of microphase-separated structures of particles and chains . Referring to the design mechanism of the lobster cuticle (Figure g), this microphase-separated structure is composed of clustered nanofibers with varying numbers of SiO 2 –NH 2 @OPG particles between the fibers.…”