Controllable Nanostructure Formation through Enthalpy-Driven Assembly of Polyoxometalate Clusters and Block Copolymers

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.5b00712
• Publication Date: 2015-06-15T11:07:51Z
• Authors: Dan Li; Xiangmeng Jia; Xiao Cao; Tianyang Xu; Haolong Li; Hujun Qian; Lixin Wu
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 0104 chemical sciences

The coassembly of block copolymers (BCPs) with nanoscale inorganic objects is an important route to fabricate nanostructured polymer composites. However, the immiscibility of inorganic/polymeric interface is a recurring challenge to overcome, particularly for inorganic clusters, such as the polyoxometalates (POMs)/BCPs system. In this paper, we present a general method to incorporate POMs into BCP matrices, in which a POM cluster is embedded as a core in a supramolecular star polymer (SSP) whose arms possess the same chemical composition as a BCP segment. Because of the enthalpic interaction between SSP arms and BCP segments, the SSP can carry POM into BCP matrices to realize their coassembly. By this way, we successfully localize a Keggin-type POM cluster [CoW12O40]6– modified with polystyrene (PS) arms into the PS domain of poly(styrene-b-ethylene oxide) micelles, which induces the formation of a series of hybrid micelles with spherical, toroidal, and bicontinuous structures. The morphological transitio...