Dissipative particle dynamics simulations of the morphologies and dynamics of linear ABC triblock copolymers in solutions

Abstract

Due to the great potential in the field of multifunctional nanoreactors and carriers, several previous works have shown the interesting morphologies of multicompartment micelles from simple linear ABC triblock copolymers in dilute solutions. In this work, for linear ABC terpolymers, their concentration-induced morphologies and morphological transitions are investigated with dissipative particle dynamics simulations. Firstly, several novel morphologies beyond those already known for dilute solutions, including the spherical core–shell–corona (CSC) micelle containing a small reverse CSC inside, the hexagonal packed cylinders in a lamella, the disk CSC micelle with a ring core, the multi-segment with a ring shell, and so on, were observed by varying the terpolymer concentration and the ratio of the three blocks. Secondly, the increase of concentration generally resulted in the morphological transition from three- or two-dimensional (3D or 2D) to one-dimensional (1D) structures. Finally, the dynamic pathway of morphological formation is similar to that of ABC star miktoarm terpolymers, which has three steps, i.e. nucleation, coalescence and growth. Moreover, the qualitative analysis showed that interfacial tension plays a definite role in the formation of the final morphologies. This work enriches the molecular-level knowledge of the morphology of multicompartment micelles from the concentration-induced self-assembly of simple linear ABC terpolymers and reveals their formation pathways, which will be useful for the future preparation and application of novel micelles.