Tunable Self-Assembly of Block Copolymers into Colloids with Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces based on Automated Chromatographic Separation
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초록
내용
Investigating morphologies of block copolymers with a narrow stability region has been challenging due to the morphology being sensitive to the composition, requiring careful synthesis and control of the volume fraction of block copolymers. Here, automated chromatographic separation is applied for generating a library of block copolymers, which enabled accessing compositionally sensitive inverse bicontinuous phases. Parent polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene oxide) (PS-b-PEO) diblock copolymer with highly asymmetric composition (fPS = 93.3%) was synthesized in large scale, which was then subjected to chromatographic separation to result in a series of PS-b-PEOs with varying volume fraction. Solution self-assembly of each fractions allowed particles with tunable morphology from vesicles to colloidal cubosomes with primitive cubic phase and double diamond phase as a function of initial concentration and volume fraction of block copolymers.