posted on 2021-10-06, 19:08authored byShi-Peng Ding, Ze-Kun Zhang, Ze Ye, Bin-Yang Du, Jun-Ting Xu
In
this work, we used zwitterionic poly(4-vinylpyridine) propane-1-sulfonate
(PVPS) as a constituent block to construct high χ-low N block copolymers (BCPs) with different neutral polymers
as the other block, including polystyrene (PS), poly(ethylene oxide)
(PEO), and poly(l-lactide) (PLLA). Lamellar structures with
sub-5 nm microdomains were observed in all three types of BCPs. Due
to the tendency of self-aggregation induced by electrostatic interaction
in polyzwitterion, the Flory–Huggins parameters (χ) between
PVPS and most neutral polymers are relatively high, which provides
a facile and efficient way to fabricate high χ-low N BCPs. In addition, the dimension of the sub-5 nm structures formed
in PVPS-containing BCPs showed high thermal stability with a small
fluctuation (±0.1 nm) of domain spacings upon heating.