Self-Assembly of Polyoxometalate-Based Starlike Polymers in Solvents of Variable Quality: From Free-Standing Sheet to Vesicle
writer:Liao, Yin; Liu, Nijuan; Zhang, Qian; Bu, Weifeng
keywords:Star Polymers, Polyoxometalates, Sheets, Vesicles, Solvent Quality
source:期刊
specific source:Macromolecules, 2014, 47(20), 7158–7168
Issue time:2014年
Polyoxometalate-based supramolecular
star polymers, where an anionic polyoxometalate is closely encapsulated by a hydrophobic shell of cation
terminated polystyrenes, are conceptually regarded as a model of star polymers to study their intra- and
inter-star interactions and self-assembled behaviors in solvents of
variable quality. These model stars can self-assemble to form
unilamellar free-standing sheets in the toluene/methanol mixture solvent with a
methanol volume ratio of 50%. An increase in the methanol content to 75 or 80%
results in a coexistence of free-standing sheets with vesicles, where several
intermediates are captured for the morphological evolution from sheet to
vesicle. With further increasing methanol content to 90%, pure vesicle phases
form with unilamellar or oligo-lamellar features. All these aggregates are
packed by the totally hydrophobic star-like polymers, where the
core-shell structures are retained. This is distinctly different from the
bilayered nanostructures formed by amphiphiles such as surfactants and block
copolymers in selective solvents.