Polyferrocenylsilane (PFS) diblock copolymers self-assemble in selective solvents to form one-dimensional micelles for a broad range of polymer compositions and experimental conditions, driven by the crystallization of the PFS block that forms the micelle core. The most striking feature of these micelles is that they remain active for further growth. They can be extended in length when additional polymer, dissolved in a good solvent, is added to a solution of the pre-existing micelles. This thesis describes several studies investigating the factors that affect the growth and fragmentation of PFS diblock copolymer micelles in solution, with a particular emphasis on polyisoprene-PFS (PI-PFS) diblock copolymers. The goal of my research was trying to provide deeper understanding of this crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA) process.
In an attempt to understand the growth kinetics of the PI-PFS cylindrical micelles, I added tiny amount of short micelle seeds into supersaturated solution of the same polymer, and followed the micelle growth by light scattering. The data analysis showed that the increase of micelle length could be described by an expression with two exponential decay terms. In another attempt to examine the factors that may affect the growth behavior of the PI-PFS micelles, I found that PI-PFS long micelles underwent fragmentation when they were subjected to external stimuli, e.g. addition of polar solvent, or heating. During the course of studying the effect of heating on the micelles, I developed a new approach to generate cylindrical micelles with controllable and uniform length, a one-dimensional analogue of self-seeding of crystalline polymers. I carried out a systematic study to investigate the self-seeding behavior of PFS block copolymers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/65522 |
| Date | 20 June 2014 |
| Creators | Qian, Jieshu |
| Contributors | Winnik, Mitchell |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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