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Nano Research 2021, 14(12): 4644-4649 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3396-x
Research Article | Issue | Published: 13 March 2021

Polymersome formation by solvent annealing-induced structural reengineering under 3D soft confinement

Show Author's Information Xi Mao1,  Hao Li1,  Jinwoo Kim2,  Shuai Deng1,  Renhua Deng1( ),  Bumjoon J. Kim2,  Jintao Zhu1( )
Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry for Energy Conversion and Storage of Ministry of Education (HUST) State Key Laboratory of Materials Processing and Die & Mold Technology School of Chemistry and Chemical EngineeringHuazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST)Wuhan 430074 China
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)Daejeon 34141 Republic of Korea
Keywords:
self-assembly, polymersome, block copolymer, three-dimensional (3D) confinement, solvent annealing
Topics:
Self assembly
Cite this article:
Mao X, Li H, Kim J, et al. Polymersome formation by solvent annealing-induced structural reengineering under 3D soft confinement. Nano Research, 2021, 14(12): 4644-4649. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3396-x
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

A solvent annealing-induced structural reengineering approach is exploited to fabricate polymersomes from block copolymers that are hard to form vesicles through the traditional solution self-assembly route. More specifically, polystyrene-b-poly(4-vinyl pyridine) (PS-b-P4VP) particles with sphere-within-sphere structure (SS particles) are prepared by three-dimensional (3D) soft-confined assembly through emulsion-solvent evaporation, followed by 3D soft-confined solvent annealing upon the SS particles in aqueous dispersions for structural engineering. A water-miscible solvent (e.g., THF) is employed for annealing, which results in dramatic transitions of the assemblies, e.g., from SS particles to polymersomes. This approach works for PS-b-P4VP in a wide range of block ratios. Moreover, this method enables effective encapsulation/loading of cargoes such as fluorescent dyes and metal nanoparticles, which offers a new route to prepare polymersomes that could be applied for cargo release, diagnostic imaging, and nanoreactor, etc.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Polymersome formation by solvent annealing-induced structural reengineering under 3D soft confinement

Show Author's information Xi Mao1, Hao Li1, Jinwoo Kim2, Shuai Deng1, Renhua Deng1( ), Bumjoon J. Kim2, Jintao Zhu1( )
Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry for Energy Conversion and Storage of Ministry of Education (HUST) State Key Laboratory of Materials Processing and Die & Mold Technology School of Chemistry and Chemical EngineeringHuazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST)Wuhan 430074 China
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)Daejeon 34141 Republic of Korea

Abstract

A solvent annealing-induced structural reengineering approach is exploited to fabricate polymersomes from block copolymers that are hard to form vesicles through the traditional solution self-assembly route. More specifically, polystyrene-b-poly(4-vinyl pyridine) (PS-b-P4VP) particles with sphere-within-sphere structure (SS particles) are prepared by three-dimensional (3D) soft-confined assembly through emulsion-solvent evaporation, followed by 3D soft-confined solvent annealing upon the SS particles in aqueous dispersions for structural engineering. A water-miscible solvent (e.g., THF) is employed for annealing, which results in dramatic transitions of the assemblies, e.g., from SS particles to polymersomes. This approach works for PS-b-P4VP in a wide range of block ratios. Moreover, this method enables effective encapsulation/loading of cargoes such as fluorescent dyes and metal nanoparticles, which offers a new route to prepare polymersomes that could be applied for cargo release, diagnostic imaging, and nanoreactor, etc.

Keywords: self-assembly, polymersome, block copolymer, three-dimensional (3D) confinement, solvent annealing

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 02 January 2021
Revised: 01 February 2021
Accepted: 09 February 2021
Published: 13 March 2021
Issue date: December 2021

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52003094), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2020kfyXJJS011). We also acknowledge HUST Analytical and Testing Center for providing characterization services.

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