Atypical micellization of star-block copolymer solutions
Journal
Journal of Chemical Physics
Journal Volume
129
Journal Issue
22
Date Issued
2008
Author(s)
Abstract
The self-assembly of star-block copolymer (ByAx) n in a selective solvent for its outer block is studied by using dissipative particle dynamics, where (ByAx)n denotes a n-armed star with each arm comprising of y solvophobic B-segments and x solvophilic A-segments. The effects of arm number, arm length, block length ratio y/x, solvent quality, and component compatibility on mean aggregation number 〈p〉 are examined. Unusual micellization behaviors are observed. The total number of arms in a multimolecular micelle n* is invariant with the arm number but grows with the segment concentration ψ, which is different from typical micellization of short-chain surfactants. For a given ψ, multimolecular micelles are formed for stars with n
Type
journal article