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Nano Research 2023, 16(8): 11503-11510 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5932-3
Research Article | Issue | Published: 31 July 2023

Crystallization-assisted asymmetric assembly of polymer nanocrescents and fidelity carbon analogues: Experiment and simulation study

Show Author's Information Lu Hou1,§,  Junfeng Wang2,3,§,  Sijia Wang1,  Wen-Cui Li1,  Guohui Li2( ),  An-Hui Lu1( )
State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Liaoning Key Laboratory for Catalytic Conversion of Carbon Resources, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Laboratory of Molecular Modeling and Design, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Reaction Dynamics, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, China
School of physics, Liaoning University, Shenyang 110036, China

§ Lu Hou and Junfeng Wang contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
crystallization, micelle, molecular simulation, polymer nanocrescent, carbon nanocrescent, asymmetric assembly
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Nanostructured materials
Cite this article:
Hou L, Wang J, Wang S, et al. Crystallization-assisted asymmetric assembly of polymer nanocrescents and fidelity carbon analogues: Experiment and simulation study. Nano Research, 2023, 16(8): 11503-11510. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5932-3
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Anisotropic nanoparticles, giving rise to a large number of novel physicochemical properties and functionalities, have provoked increasing attentions in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The remained challenge is to develop synthetic methods for the fabrication of anisotropic nanoparticles with less symmetry under the principle of minimum surface free energy. Here, we established a crystallization-assisted asymmetric assembly method for the synthesis of anisotropic polymer nanocrescents and their carbonaceous analogues by using triblock copolymer F127 and octadecanol in aqueous solution. With the aid of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, we demonstrate that the observed crescent structure is caused by asymmetry distribution of octadecanol crystal within the hydrophobic core of F127 micelles, via the formation of intermediate elliptic micelles bearing hydrophobic ends that further fuse with each other end-to-end at an angle into curing nanocrescent morphology. The influences of annealing time, annealing temperature, and mole ratios of precursors that govern the kinetics of the assembly and polymerization process were systematically investigated and a series of polymer nanocrescents with tunable length of ~ 85 to ~ 262 nm and aspect ratio of ~ 1.1 to ~ 3.0 were prepared. The ability to create novel crescent-shaped polymer and carbon nanoparticles and the identification of asymmetric assembly process by combining experiment and simulation study will provide a valuable contribution both to theoretical and technological researches.


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Abstract
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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Crystallization-assisted asymmetric assembly of polymer nanocrescents and fidelity carbon analogues: Experiment and simulation study

Show Author's information Lu Hou1,§, Junfeng Wang2,3,§, Sijia Wang1, Wen-Cui Li1, Guohui Li2( ), An-Hui Lu1( )
State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Liaoning Key Laboratory for Catalytic Conversion of Carbon Resources, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Laboratory of Molecular Modeling and Design, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Reaction Dynamics, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, China
School of physics, Liaoning University, Shenyang 110036, China

§ Lu Hou and Junfeng Wang contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Anisotropic nanoparticles, giving rise to a large number of novel physicochemical properties and functionalities, have provoked increasing attentions in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The remained challenge is to develop synthetic methods for the fabrication of anisotropic nanoparticles with less symmetry under the principle of minimum surface free energy. Here, we established a crystallization-assisted asymmetric assembly method for the synthesis of anisotropic polymer nanocrescents and their carbonaceous analogues by using triblock copolymer F127 and octadecanol in aqueous solution. With the aid of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, we demonstrate that the observed crescent structure is caused by asymmetry distribution of octadecanol crystal within the hydrophobic core of F127 micelles, via the formation of intermediate elliptic micelles bearing hydrophobic ends that further fuse with each other end-to-end at an angle into curing nanocrescent morphology. The influences of annealing time, annealing temperature, and mole ratios of precursors that govern the kinetics of the assembly and polymerization process were systematically investigated and a series of polymer nanocrescents with tunable length of ~ 85 to ~ 262 nm and aspect ratio of ~ 1.1 to ~ 3.0 were prepared. The ability to create novel crescent-shaped polymer and carbon nanoparticles and the identification of asymmetric assembly process by combining experiment and simulation study will provide a valuable contribution both to theoretical and technological researches.

Keywords: crystallization, micelle, molecular simulation, polymer nanocrescent, carbon nanocrescent, asymmetric assembly

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 21 April 2023
Revised: 10 June 2023
Accepted: 14 June 2023
Published: 31 July 2023
Issue date: August 2023

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2023

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21875028 and 22288101), Liaoning Revitalization Talents Program (No. XLYC1902045), and the Science and Technology Innovation Fund of Dalian (No. 2020JJ26GX030).

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