Condensed materials are prone to form periodic structures to optimize thermodynamic interaction between components in certain conditions. Likewise, amphiphilic molecules containing both hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties aggregate into micelles in an aqueous medium, and further mesophases such as vesicles, cylinders, and lamellar at higher concentrations. For the macromolecular size of amphiphilic molecules, such amphiphilic random copolymers consisting of hydrophilic and aliphatic alkyl side chains are known to fold into single-chain micelles in a dilute aqueous solution. Here, we describe a unique mesophase when a large amount of amphiphilic random copolymers is dissolved in water. Temperature variation and shear-aligned X-ray measurement demonstrate the phase behavior of mesostructure with the spacing of sub 20 nm driven by the hydrophilic-phobic balance and the backbone length scale. The origin of the stable mesophase formation from a single grafted polymer chain system will be discussed.

Lyotropic mesophases of amphiphilic random copolymers in aqueous solution

ACS Spring 2022

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