Aside from polymerization techniques, polymer nanoparticles can be generated through the displacement of a solvent with a nonsolvent, i.e., nanoprecipitation. In this talk, we present a facile process termed Flash NanoPrecipitation (FNP) to generate pure polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles and heterogeneous polymer nanoparticles. As compared to PS nanoparticles synthesized by surfactant free emulsion polymerization, nanoparticles prepared by FNP show comparable size distributions when the diameter is less than 150 nm. Furthermore, we illustrate that the sizes of PS nanoparticles prepared by FNP can be fine-tuned by changing the polymer and/or electrolyte concentration. The stabilized nanoparticles contain only the radically polymerized polymer chains, which have sulfate anions at the chain termini and no additional external stabilizers. Calculations of the mechanism of particle formation and stabilization show that the size-dependent electrostatic repulsions between nanoparticles and nanoparticles versus single collapsed polymer chains control assembly and monodispersity. We conclude the talk discussing recent developments in heterogeneous nanoparticle formation using the FNP platform.

Flash nanoprecipitation as a route to produce polymer nanoparticles

247th National Meeting (2014)

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