Shear-induced self-assembly of linear ABC triblock copolymers in solution: creation of 1D cylindrical micellar structures

Abstract

Although the creation of nanostructures from solution self-assembly block copolymers is one of the most promising approaches, the formation of 1D cylindrical structures remains a challenge. In this work, shear flow is introduced to create 1D cylindrical micellar structures based on solution self-assembly of linear ABC terpolymers. The dissipative particle dynamics method is used to explore the whole morphological space. Firstly, 7 spherical (0D), 10 cylindrical and 1 oblate spherical (1D), 5 lamella and 3 oblate cylindrical (2D) micellar structures are summarized from the total 315 morphologies. Secondly, several 1D cylindrical micelles provided by this simulation have the potential to become interesting single- or double-walled nanotubes and cylindrical co-micelles. Finally, the shear rate, the concentration and the solvophilic block length as 3 key factors of controlling the creation of multi-dimensional structures are given, which are important to the formation of 1D, 2D and 0D structures, respectively. In fact, this work uses a simple shear means to promote the reorientation and rearrangement of self-assembly morphologies, and selectively builds 0D (dot), 1D (tube) or 2D (sheet) nanostructures. These results are helpful to understand the formation of complex micelles by shear-induced self-assembly of linear ABC triblock copolymers and for tailoring new 1D cylindrical morphologies.