Fluorine-containing block copolymers can generate microphase-separated structures due to incompatibility of fluorine-containing block with others. These microphase-separated structures are usually at the several nanometers in size and are difficult to be detected due to the limitation of instruments. In this work, block copolymer nano-assemblies of fluorine-containing ABC triblock copolymer of poly(ethylene glycol)-block-polystyrene-block-poly(pentafluorophenyl 4-vinylbenzyl ether) (PEG-b-PS-b-PVBFP) were synthesized by reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization under dispersed condition using poly(ethylene glycol)-block-polystyrene (PEG-b-PS) vesicles as seed. This synthesis affords the vesicular nano-assemblies of PEG-b-PS-b-PVBFP, in which the polystyrene (PS) block and the poly(pentafluorophenyl 4-vinylbenzyl ether) (PVBFP) block forms the double-layered membrane of the vesicles. Because of the relatively large size of the large vesicular nano-assemblies and the thin membrane of the vesicles, the morphology or distribution of the fluorine-containing block of PVBFP in the vesicular membrane can be clearly detected by TEM. It indicates, the PVBFP forms dispersed micro-domains in the vesicular membrane due to the incompatibility between PS and PVBFP. With the increasing degree of polymerization (DP) of the PVBFP block, the size of the PVBFP micro-domains increases and the morphology of the PVBFP micro-domains changes from linear nanorods to winding nanorods. This method is expected to be applied for precisely detecting the microphase-separated structures of nano-assemblies of fluorine-containing block copolymers.

Precisely detecting microphase-separated structure of fluorine-containing block copolymer nano-assemblies

ACS Spring 2022

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