Solution self-assembly of amphiphilic polymers provides a framework to design novel structured materials. In particular,  structures formed by multiblock polymers composed by liquid crystalline and coil blocks are of much interest, because domains of liquid crystalline blocks can display nematic ordering with interesting optical and mechanical properties. By using dissipative particle dynamics, we study the solution self-assembly behavior of rod-coil-rod triblock copolymers in a coil-selective solvent. We have performed extensive molecular simulations to elucidate the effect of polymer composition and concentration on the self-assembly behavior. A quantitative analysis was performed to investigate how polymer conformations and ordering change as composition and concentration were varied. Our results show that at small rod compositions polymers self-assemble into micelles, at low concentrations, and form networks as the concentration increases. As rod composition increases, larger aggregates are formed giving place to cylindrical micelles and membranes. Our findings provide insights into the effect of molecular architecture and flexibility on the self-assembly behavior of rod-coil-rod triblocks in selective solvents.

Self-Assembly of rod-coil-rod block copolymers in a coil-selective solvent: Coarse-grained simulation results

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.