A facile route to bespoke macro- and mesoporous block copolymer microparticles

A facile and versatile strategy to fabricate macro- and mesoporous block copolymer microparticles with bespoke characteristics using supercritical CO₂.

Soft Confinement-Induced Morphologies of the Blends of AB Diblock Copolymers and C Homopolymers

Self-assembly behavior of the blends of AB diblock copolymers and C homopolymers in soft confinement is studied by using a simulated annealing method. Polymer solution droplets in a poor solvent environment realize the soft confinement. Several sequences of soft confinement-induced copolymer aggregates with different shapes and internal structures are predicted as functions of the size of confinement, the number ratio of AB diblock copolymers to C homopolymers, the volume fraction of blocks, the selectivity of confinement's surface, the incompatibility between blocks, and the competition between two block-homopolymer interactions. Simulation results demonstrate that those factors are able to tune the morphology of the aggregates precisely. We anticipate the rules achieved here is helpful to fabrication of polymeric particle with predesigned morphology.

Self-assembly of nanostructured block copolymer nanoparticles

In this highlight, we discuss the self-assembly of block copolymer (BCP) nanoparticles. We first review the state-of-art of hierarchical structural features of BCP nanoparticles due to 3D geometric confinement, both theory and experiments. Simultaneously, we highlight the applications based on these structural features: the generation of multifunctional hybrid nanoparticles, the fabrication of mesoporous BCP nanoparticles, and applications of using BCP nanoparticles as nanocontainers or nanocargos. Finally, we discuss the challenge in the fabrication and potential applications of nanostructured BCP nanoparticles.