Surfactant Mediated Microphase Separation in Miscible Block Copolymer of Poly(4-vinyl pyridine-b-hydroxybutylacrylate)

Miscible disordered block copolymers(BCPs)are rarely studied due to the limits in self-assembly into ordered microstructures.Herein,we proposed a facile method for the transformation of disordered miscible BCPs to comb-like BCPs with well-ordered microphase separation structures via blending with amphiphilic surfactants.In this work,poly(4-vinyl pyridine-b-hydroxybutylacrylate)(P4VP-b-P4HBA)was applied as a model of miscible disordered BCPs and the microphase separation was induced via blending with surfactants of dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid(DBSA)and 3-pentadecylphenol(PDP).The ordered microstructures including spherical and cylindrical morphologies were confirmed by transmission electron microscopy(TEM)and small angle X-ray scattering(SAXS)investigation.These ordered microstructures thermal sensitive,in which ordered and disordered transformation(ODT)was observed in the blend of P4VP-b-P4HBA and PDP whereas it disappeared in the blend of P4VP-b-P4HBA and DBSA.The results show that the thermal stability of the ordered microstructures are strongly depends on the interactions between the miscible BCPs and surfactants,which investigated by in situ SAXS and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer(FTIR).The combination of miscible BCPs and surfactant creates a feasible strategy to fabricate ordered nanostructures,which could be employed to develop complicated nanomaterials.