Janus Nanostructures from ABC/B Triblock Terpolymer Blends
1
Physical Chemistry and Center for Nanointegration Duisburg-Essen (CENIDE), University Duisburg-Essen, 47057 Duisburg, Germany
2
Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Staudingerweg 7, 55128 Mainz, Germany
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Polymers 2019, 11(7), 1107; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11071107
Received: 21 May 2019
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Revised: 16 June 2019
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Accepted: 28 June 2019
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Published: 30 June 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Self-assembly of Block Copolymers)
Lamella-forming ABC triblock terpolymers are convenient building blocks for the synthesis of soft Janus nanoparticles (JNPs) by crosslinking the B domain that is “sandwiched” between A and C lamellae. Despite thorough synthetic variation of the B fraction to control the geometry of the sandwiched microphase, so far only Janus spheres, cylinders, and sheets have been obtained. In this combined theoretical and experimental work, we show that the blending of polybutadiene homopolymer (hPB) into lamella morphologies of polystyrene-block-polybutadiene-block-polymethylmethacrylate (SBM) triblock terpolymers allows the continuous tuning of the polybutadiene (PB) microphase. We systematically vary the volume fraction of hPB in the system, and we find in both experiments and simulations morphological transitions from PB-cylinders to perforated PB-lamellae and further to continuous PB-lamellae. Our simulations show that the hPB is distributed homogeneously in the PB microdomains. Through crosslinking of the PB domain and redispersion in a common solvent for all blocks, we separate the bulk morphologies into Janus cylinders, perforated Janus sheets, and Janus sheets. These studies suggest that more complex Janus nanostructures could be generated from ABC triblock terpolymers than previously expected.
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Keywords:
block copolymers; bulk morphologies; DPD simulations; Janus nanostructures; polymer blending
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MDPI and ACS Style
Steinhaus, A.; Srivastva, D.; Nikoubashman, A.; Gröschel, A.H. Janus Nanostructures from ABC/B Triblock Terpolymer Blends. Polymers 2019, 11, 1107. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11071107
AMA Style
Steinhaus A, Srivastva D, Nikoubashman A, Gröschel AH. Janus Nanostructures from ABC/B Triblock Terpolymer Blends. Polymers. 2019; 11(7):1107. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11071107
Chicago/Turabian StyleSteinhaus, Andrea, Deepika Srivastva, Arash Nikoubashman, and André H. Gröschel. 2019. "Janus Nanostructures from ABC/B Triblock Terpolymer Blends" Polymers 11, no. 7: 1107. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11071107
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