Chem. J. Chinese Universities ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (3): 857.doi: 10.7503/cjcu20200612

• Polymer Chemistry • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Monte Carlo Simulation of the Transformation Control of ABC Triblock Copolymer Micelles from Multicompartment Structure to Multicore Structure

FAN Juanjuan1, HAN Yuanyuan2(), CUI Jie2()   

  1. 1.College of Information Technology,Jilin Agricultural University,Changchun 130118,China
    2.School of Petrochemical Engineering,Liaoning Shihua University,Fushun 113001,China
  • Received:2020-08-27 Online:2021-03-10 Published:2021-03-08
  • Contact: HAN Yuanyuan E-mail:hanyuanyuan@lnpu.edu.cn;cuijie@lnpu.edu.cn

Abstract:

The self-assembly behavior of ABC triblock terpolymers with hydrophobic-hydrophilic-hydrophobic(H-P-H) sequence in selective solvent of B blocks was studied by means of Monte Carlo simulation. The simulation results show that various micelles with different morphologies can be formed by adjusting the hydrophobicity and the incompatibility of A and C blocks. According to the characteristics of hydrophobic core structures in the micelles, these micelles can be generally divided into two types: multicore micelles and multicompartment micelles. By increasing the hydrophobicity of hydrophobic blocks or reducing the incompatibility between A and C blocks, the micelles formed by H-P-H type ABC triblock terpolymers can transform from multicore micelles to multicompartment micelles. Via further investigation on the chain conformations in typical micelles, it is found that there is competition between the hydrophobic interaction and the repulsion between A and C blocks, and this competition is the main factor that determines whether the multicore micelles or the multicompartment micelles can be formed by ABC triblock terpolymers with H-P-H sequence.

Key words: Amphiphilic block copolymer, Multicompartment micelle, Multicore micelle, Hierarchical structure, Monte Carlo simulation

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