Self-assembly of ABC-type patchy nanoparticles formed by crosslinking triblock copolymer micelles
Weisheng Feng,
Liquan Wang,
Xuepei Xu,
Xing Zhang,
Shaoliang Lin
Affiliations
Weisheng Feng
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Advanced Polymeric Materials, Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, Frontiers Science Center for Materiobiology and Dynamic Chemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
Liquan Wang
Corresponding authors.; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Advanced Polymeric Materials, Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, Frontiers Science Center for Materiobiology and Dynamic Chemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
Xuepei Xu
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Advanced Polymeric Materials, Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, Frontiers Science Center for Materiobiology and Dynamic Chemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
Xing Zhang
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Advanced Polymeric Materials, Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, Frontiers Science Center for Materiobiology and Dynamic Chemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
Shaoliang Lin
Corresponding authors.; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Advanced Polymeric Materials, Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, Frontiers Science Center for Materiobiology and Dynamic Chemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
Hierarchical self-assembly is efficient in transferring functionality from small to large scales. Polymer nanoparticles with regularity are highly desirable because they are ideal units of hierarchical self-assembly. Herein, we proposed a crosslinking strategy for generating nanoparticles from ABC linear triblock copolymers and conducted a computational study on the self-assembly of the nanoparticles. The effect of nanoparticle symmetry on aggregation behaviors was examined. We found that the symmetric patchy nanoparticles can form various low-curvature aggregates tuned by the crosslinking numbers and A/C block lengths. Increasing the asymmetry of patchy nanoparticles causes the increased curvature of assemblies, forming well-defined structures such as loops, vesicles, and wavy ribbons. Furthermore, the self-assembly kinetics reveals a step-growth nature, resembling the step polymerization for one-dimensional growth. The work demonstrates that ABC-type polymeric nanoparticles are versatile units for building hierarchical assemblies, considerably enriching the self-assembly strategies.
