When assembly of two or more different types of polymer particles takes place, novel and advanced properties can be generated which is difficult to realized by individual types of nanoparticles alone. The engineering of polymer nanoparticles with controlled properties is very promising for various applications. Furthermore, assembly architectures of functional polymer particles in hierarchical manners are useful because of their physicochemical and surface properties for multi-labeling and sensing to catalysis and biomedical applications. Usually, polymer nanoparticles’ interior is mainly made up of the cross-linked network. On the other side, the surface of polymer nanoparticles can be tailored with soft, flexible, and responsive molecules and macromolecules as potential support for the controlled particulate assemblies. Molecular surfactants with amphiphilic characters and charged polyelectrolytes as interfacial agents improve the stability of the nanoparticles whereas a swellable and soft shell-like hydrophilic cross-linked polymeric layer at the interface on the hydrophobic core can significantly enhance the uptake of guest nano-constituents during their interactions to form the assembly architectures. Moreover, layer-by-layer surface-functionalization holds the ability to provide a high variability in assembly architectures of different interfacial properties. Based on these promises, various assembly architectures of polymer nanoparticles of tunable size, shapes, morphology, and tailored interfaces together with controllable interfacial interactions are presented here. The microfluidic-supported platform has been used for the synthesis of constituent polymer nanoparticles of various structural and interfacial properties, and their assemblies from the nanoscale to microscale in hierarchical order are formed in batch or flow conditions. Overall, various types of assembling systems of the polymer particles <i>via </i>self-assembly, electrostatic assembly, and multiscale assembly by embedding smaller components in larger ones are presented.

Hierarchical assembly architectures based on surface-active polymer particles

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ACS Fall 2022

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