Issue 12, 2009

Tuning the assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers through instabilities of solvent/water interfaces in the presence of aqueous surfactants

Abstract

The influence of the water-soluble surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) on the self-assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers through hydrodynamic instabilities of organic solvent/water interfaces was studied. Micropipette aspiration measurements performed on evaporating chloroform droplets containing polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene oxide) (PS-PEO) revealed that interfacial instabilities were correlated to an approach of the organic/water interfacial tension to zero. The addition of SDS to the aqueous phase lowered the interfacial tension, thereby facilitating the onset of instability at lower concentrations of PS-PEO within the droplets. Further, increased amounts of SDS led to qualitatively different mechanisms of interfacial instability and correspondingly different morphologies of the resulting copolymer/surfactant assemblies. Similar, though less pronounced, effects were obtained using poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVOH) as a water-soluble surfactant, reflecting its more weakly concentration-dependent surface activity. These results enabled a single PS-PEO or polybutadiene-PEO block copolymer of fixed composition to be processed into aggregates that could be easily tuned from multi-vesicular particles to wormlike micelles and to spherical micelles.

Graphical abstract: Tuning the assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers through instabilities of solvent/water interfaces in the presence of aqueous surfactants

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
14 Oct 2008
Accepted
03 Apr 2009
First published
20 May 2009

Soft Matter, 2009,5, 2471-2478

Tuning the assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers through instabilities of solvent/water interfaces in the presence of aqueous surfactants

J. Zhu, N. Ferrer and R. C. Hayward, Soft Matter, 2009, 5, 2471 DOI: 10.1039/B818065B

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