The effectiveness of complimentary macromolecular materials in encapsulating oils and stabilizing their emulsions is investigated in this study. Since the instability upon surfactant dilution is an unavoidable, a promising approach to accessing long-term stability in emulsions is the use of unimolecular micelles, which, as amphiphilic macromolecules with structure held together by covalent bonds, yield stabile emulsions for longer time frames. Therefore, following this rationale, amphiphilic polymers (biocompatible or biodegradable) grafted to well-defined, functionalized silica nanoparticles (~10-100 nm) were synthesized in controlled fashion by several routes. Light scattering-based unique methodologies together with traditional methods were used in the characterization studies of SiO2-GPS-PCL-PEG copolymer grafted particles, with major focus on understanding of how critical structural parameters, such as polymer chain length, hydrophilic/hydrophobic block ratio, size of nanoparticle core, affect their performance as dispersants for remediation. Experiments were designed to monitor stability and dynamics of the nanoparticles in aqueous solutions, to measure kinetics and quantity of entrapment loading of organic components by the novel nanoparticles and unimolecular micelles and measure kinetics and conditions for release. The loading limits of the SiO2-GPS-PCL-PEG copolymer grafted particles were correlated to the thickness and density of hydrophobic PCL layer in the amphiphilic copolymer nanoparticles and with the concentration and type of the organic component incorporated . It is hoped that the knowledge gained from these studies will offer convincing arguments in proving that the novel amphiphilic materials synthesized, represent efficient concentrationindependent biocompatible dispersants.

Macromolecular characterization of novel amphiphilic copolymer grafted nanoparticles, as concentration-independent dispersants for improved oil spill remediation

248th National Meeting (2014)

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