A giant surfactant of polystyrene-(carboxylic Acid-functionalized polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane) amphiphile with highly stretched polystyrene tails in micellar assemblies.
A novel giant surfactant possessing a well-defined hydrophilic head and a hydrophobic polymeric tail, polystyrene-(carboxylic acid-functionalized polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane) conjugate (PS-APOSS), has been designed and synthesized via living anionic polymerization, hydrosilylation, and thiol-ene "click" chemistry. PS-APOSS forms micelles in selective solvents, and the micellar morphology can be tuned from vesicles to wormlike cylinders and further to spheres by increasing the degree of ionization of the carboxylic acid. The effect of APOSS-APOSS interactions was proven to be essential in the morphological transformation of the micelles. The PS tails in these micellar cores were found to be highly stretched in comparison with those in traditional amphiphilic block copolymers, and this can be explained in terms of minimization of free energy. This novel class of giant surfactants expands the scope of macromolecular amphiphiles and provides a platform for the study of the basic physical principles of their self-assembly behavior.
Department of Polymer Science, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325, United States.
Xinfei
X
Yu
Sheng
S
Zhong
Xiaopeng
X
Li
Yingfeng
Y
Tu
Shuguang
S
Yang
Ryan M
RM
Van Horn
Chaoying
C
Ni
Darrin J
DJ
Pochan
Roderic P
RP
Quirk
Chrys
C
Wesdemiotis
Wen-Bin
WB
Zhang
Stephen Z D
SZ
Cheng