TY - JOUR
T1 - Self-Assembly of Polymer Blends and Nanoparticles through Rapid Solvent Exchange
AU - Li, Nannan
AU - Nikoubashman, Arash
AU - Panagiotopoulos, Athanassios Z.
N1 - Funding Information:
Financial support for this work was provided by the Princeton Center for Complex Materials (PCCM), a U.S. National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (Grant DMR-1420541). Furthermore, N.L. acknowledges funding from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore. A.N. acknowledges funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) under project number NI 1487/2-1.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2019/3/12
Y1 - 2019/3/12
N2 - Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study the fabrication of polymeric colloids containing inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) via the flash nanoprecipitation (FNP) technique. During this process, a binary polymer blend, initially in a good solvent for the polymers, is rapidly mixed with NPs and a poor solvent for the polymers that is miscible with the good solvent. The simulations reveal that the polymers formed Janus particles with NPs distributed either on the surface of the aggregates, throughout their interior, or aligned at the interface between the two polymer domains, depending on the NP-polymer and NP-solvent interactions. The loading and surface density of NPs can be controlled by the polymer feed concentration, the NP feed concentration, and their ratio in the feed streams. Selective localization of NPs by incorporating electrostatic interactions between polymers and NPs has also been investigated, and was shown to be an effective way to enhance NP loading and surface density as compared to the case with only van der Waals attractions. This work demonstrates that the FNP process is promising for the production of structured and hybrid nanocolloids in a continuous and scalable way, with independent control over particle properties such as size, NP location, loading, and surface density. Our results provide useful guidelines for experimental fabrication of such hybrid nanoparticles.
AB - Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study the fabrication of polymeric colloids containing inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) via the flash nanoprecipitation (FNP) technique. During this process, a binary polymer blend, initially in a good solvent for the polymers, is rapidly mixed with NPs and a poor solvent for the polymers that is miscible with the good solvent. The simulations reveal that the polymers formed Janus particles with NPs distributed either on the surface of the aggregates, throughout their interior, or aligned at the interface between the two polymer domains, depending on the NP-polymer and NP-solvent interactions. The loading and surface density of NPs can be controlled by the polymer feed concentration, the NP feed concentration, and their ratio in the feed streams. Selective localization of NPs by incorporating electrostatic interactions between polymers and NPs has also been investigated, and was shown to be an effective way to enhance NP loading and surface density as compared to the case with only van der Waals attractions. This work demonstrates that the FNP process is promising for the production of structured and hybrid nanocolloids in a continuous and scalable way, with independent control over particle properties such as size, NP location, loading, and surface density. Our results provide useful guidelines for experimental fabrication of such hybrid nanoparticles.
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U2 - 10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b04197
DO - 10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b04197
M3 - Article
C2 - 30759987
AN - SCOPUS:85062534825
SN - 0743-7463
VL - 35
SP - 3780
EP - 3789
JO - Langmuir
JF - Langmuir
IS - 10
ER -