Three polystyrene-block-poly(2-vinylpyridine) (S2VP diblock) and three polystyrene-block-poly(4-vinylpyridine) (S4VP diblock) copolymers with varying molecular weights and block compositions were synthesized via anionic polymerization, and their order-disorder transition temperatures (TODTs) were determined using oscillatory shear rheometry and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). It has been f...

Hierarchically assembled amphiphilic diblock copolymer micelles were exquisitely crafted over large areas by capitalizing on two concurrent self-assembling processes at different length scales, namely, the periodic threads composed of a monolayer or a bilayer of diblock copolymer micelles precisely positioned by flow-enabled self-assembly (FESA) on the microscopic scale and the self-assembly of...

In this study, factors controlling autonomous vesicle oscillations exhibited by self-oscillating diblock copolymers were investigated. The self-oscillating diblock copolymer contains poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) as the hydrophilic block and a random copolymer composed of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) with side chains of ruthenium tris(2,2'-bipyridine) (Ru(bpy)3), which catalyzes the Belousov-Zha...

The electrochemical properties of a solid polymer electrolyte consisting of a diblock copolymer and lithium bis oxalato borate, LiBC4O8 LiBOB salt, is reported. The spherical microphase-separated diblock copolymer is composed of a majority poly ethylene oxide PEO block and a minority random copolymer block of methyl methacrylate MMA and lithium salt of methacrylic acid MAALi , PEO-bPMMA-ran-PMA...

Diblock copolymers are a class of materials formed by the reaction of two linear polymers. The different structures taken on by these polymers grant them special properties, which can prove useful in applications such as development of new adhesives and asphalt additives. The diblock copolymer equation governs the formation of these polymers. Using the software package AUTO, continuation analys...

We compare and contrast the microstructure, viscoelastic properties, and shock response of coarse-grained models of multiblock copolymer and diblock copolymers using molecular dynamics simulations. This study is motivated by the excellent dissipative and shock-mitigating properties of polyurea, speculated to arise from its multiblock chain architecture. Our microstructural analyses reveal that ...

Phase behaviors of a 21-arm star-like diblock copolymer in bulk and under confinement were explored by using the pseudo-spectral method of a self-consistent mean field theory. An asymmetrical phase diagram in bulk was constructed by comparing the free energy of different structures. The gyroid phase was found to possess a large phase region when the inner block in the star-like diblock copolyme...

A series of thermoresponsive diblock copolymers of poly[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate-block-di(ethyleneglycol) methyl ether methacrylate], poly(DMAEMA-b-DEGMA), were synthesized by reversible addition−fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerizations. The series consist of diblock and quasi diblock copolymers. Sequential monomer addition was used for the quasi diblock copolymer synthesi...

Melts of diblock copolymer / homopolymer blends exhibit multiscale phase separation: (i) macrophase separation into homopolymerand copolymer-rich macrodomains followed by (ii) microphase separation into Aand B-rich microdomains within the copolymer-rich macrodomains (cf. [16, 17, 26]). Following our previous derivation in [6], we derive a density functional theory for blends. This theory has be...

Combined with an approximation suggested by Taylor and Lipson for the third-order correlation function and the translational invariance approximation, the BGY equation is used to calculate the conformation and thermodynamic properties of a diblock square-well copolymer or a random square-well copolymer. The BGY results for the end-to-end distribution of copolymers are in good agreement with Mon...