Micellization of poly(2-vinylpyrridine)-b-poly(cyclohexyl methacrylate) (P2VP-b-PCHMA) block copolymers and their interpolymer complex formation in non-aqueous medium

Leonard I Atanase; Gerard Riess

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.04.065

Micellization of poly(2-vinylpyrridine)-b-poly(cyclohexyl methacrylate) (P2VP-b-PCHMA) block copolymers and their interpolymer complex formation in non-aqueous medium

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Aug 1:549:171-178. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.04.065. Epub 2019 Apr 28.

Authors

Leonard I Atanase¹, Gerard Riess²

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Medical Dentistry, Apollonia University of Iasi, 2 Muzicii Street, 700399 Iasi, Romania. Electronic address: leonard.atanase@yahoo.com.
² LPIM, University of Haute Alsace, Mulhouse, France. Electronic address: gerard.riess@uha.fr.

PMID: 31029844
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.04.065

Abstract

Hypothesis: The interpolymer complex formation between poly(vinylpyridine)-based polymers with poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), in aqueous or organic medium, is driven by the hydrogen-bonding complexation. Well-defined nanostructures, with specific practical applications, may be obtained by taking advantage of such non-covalent interactions.

Experiments: Poly(2-vinylpyridine)-b-poly(cyclohexyl methacrylate) (P2VP-b-PCHMA) and poly(2-vinylpyridine)-b-poly(t-butyl methacrylate)-b-poly(cyclohexyl methacrylate) (P2VP-b-PtBuMA-b-PCHMA) copolymers were synthesized by sequential anionic polymerization. Their micellar characteristics were examined as a function of their molecular characteristics in methylcyclohexane and toluene respectively, as cycloaliphatic and aromatic solvents for the selective solubilization of the PCHMA sequence. The size of interpolymer complexes was determined by DLS, in 1,4 dioxane, and their structural composition was characterized by ¹H NMR.

Findings: The scaling relationship between the molecular composition and the micellar characteristics, such as particle size and aggregation number, could be established for the PCHMA-based copolymers in methylcyclohexane. It was further demonstrated that controlled micellization in 1,4 dioxane, as a non-selective organic solvent, could be achieved by hydrogen bond type interpolymer complex formation between P2VP-b-PCHMA and PAA-b-PCHMA under stoichiometric P2VP/PAA conditions. Finally, the size of the PCHMA-b-PAA/P2VP block copolymer/homopolymer complexes as well as of the PCHMA-b-PAA/PCHMA-b-P2VP block copolymer/block copolymer complexes was correlated with the molecular characteristics of the copolymers.

Keywords: Block copolymers; Interpolymer complex; Micellization; Organic medium; Poly(2-vinylpyrridine); Poly(cyclohexyl methacrylate).