Abstract
We report an experimental study of the assembly of various multicompartment and multigeometry nanoparticles constructed from mixtures of two diblock copolymers. By simply blending the amphiphilic block copolymers poly(acrylic acid)block-poly-isoprene (PAA-b-PI) and poly(acrylic acid)-block-polystyrene (PAA-b-PS), we constructed complex nanostructures including multigeometry vesicle-cylinder particles, multicompartment vesicles, or multigeometry cylinder-disk nanopartides via kinetic control of solution assembly. In our assembly strategy, the FAA common domain in both block copolymers was first complexed with organic diamine molecules in organic solution to form a particle core. Therefore, the two different hydrophobic blocks from the two different polymers were trapped into the same particle. After addition of water, the particles form the structure having hydrophobic cores and FAA-amine hydrophilic shells; the two hydrophobic domains locally nanophase-separated in the core to form the multicompartment and multigeometry nanopartides. Importantly, detailed control of the solvent mixing rates helps dictate the final hybrid nanostructures formed at higher water content. TEM and cryoTEM with selective staining were performed to characterize the hybrid nanopartides.
