Issue 30, 2013

The intriguing ordering and compatibilizing performance of Janus nanoparticles with various shapes and different dividing surface designs in immiscible polymer blends

Abstract

As a unique type of building blocks for directional self-assembly of superstructures as well as a novel class of stabilizers in polymer alloys, Janus nanoparticles if blended with immiscible homopolymers may not only open a route for fabrication of nanostructured materials with hierarchical order but also provide a means to stabilize immiscible homopolymers through formation of bicontinuous microemulsions. In this paper, by systematically investigating the phase behavior and phase dynamics of ternary systems composed of two immiscible homopolymers and Janus nanoparticles with various shapes and different dividing surface designs, we disclose the consequences and precise mechanism of varying the particle shape and the relevant dividing surface design on the ordering and compatibilizing performance of Janus nanoparticles for nanostructuring immiscible polymers. We demonstrate that a lamellar phase is only formed in systems with anisotropic “standing” Janus nanoparticles. This microphase ordering can go along with the lateral ordering of “standing” particles within lamellar layers and the exhibited in-layer arrangement is dependent on the particle shape. Moreover, the addition of Janus nanoparticles tremendously slows down the phase separation, and the compatibilizing performance is directly related to the total dividing surface area of Janus nanoparticles which is determined by the particle shapes and dividing surface designs. Particularly, the slow exponential domain growth dynamics at the late-time phase separation process follows a crossover scaling form regardless of the particle shapes and dividing surface designs, indicating that the phase separation dynamics of these systems is controlled by the same physical mechanism, that is, the interfacial aggregation of Janus nanoparticles reduces the interfacial tension to virtually zero.

Graphical abstract: The intriguing ordering and compatibilizing performance of Janus nanoparticles with various shapes and different dividing surface designs in immiscible polymer blends

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Apr 2013
Accepted
24 May 2013
First published
29 May 2013

Soft Matter, 2013,9, 7356-7368

The intriguing ordering and compatibilizing performance of Janus nanoparticles with various shapes and different dividing surface designs in immiscible polymer blends

M. Huang and H. Guo, Soft Matter, 2013, 9, 7356 DOI: 10.1039/C3SM50957E

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