Porous nanostructured materials are essential to power high-performance energy conversion and storage devices. Block copolymer self-assembly plays a very important role in achieving that. However, fully tunable nanostructured materials with decoupled effect on each architectural feature remains elusive. Recently, we introduced a new approach, persistent micelle templating (PMT) to develop tunable nanomaterials with architecture control where pore size and wall-dimension tuned independently. PMT is rather known as a kinetic-controlled process where constant template sizes are maintained despite the shifting equilibrium as material precursors are included. We have demonstrated PMT concept with atomic-level precision, by introducing a custom-made block copolymer poly(ethyleneoxide-<i>block</i>-hexyl acrylate) and a solution processing guideline. PMT is primarily governed by the micelle kinetic entrapment process that is regulated by adjusting cosolvent amount. However, the unrestricted amount of cosolvent (e.g. water) may cause the formation of secondary pores into the material wall that may affect device performance. Therefore, we came up with the idea of controlling PMT development via adding major solvents of higher Hildebrand solubility parameters and minimizing the cosolvent addition. This not only avoids the formation of secondary pores, also expands the PMT window tunability. PMT development under kinetic control with different solvents including THF, methanol, and ethanol will be presented.

Kinetic-control effects towards persistent micelle templating

2019 Fall National Meeting

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