Abstract
Hairy nanoparticles with polystyrene cores (PS cores) and poly(2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate) (PHEMA) shells were synthesized by combining living anionic polymerization and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The structural characterization was carried out by FT-IR and NMR spectroscopy (1H NMR, 13C NMR, APT 13C NMR and 1H 13C HMQC). The thermal stability of the PS cores was not affected by grafting PHEMA on their surfaces. A differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) thermogram of the HNPs showed two distinct transition temperatures indicating microphase separation. Chiral HNPs were prepared by inducing chirality in the achiral HNPs by complexation with R- or S-mandelic acid. The circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy of complexes of the HNPs/R- or S-mandelic acid indicated the formation of enantiomeric chiral structures. The self-assembled structures formed from the achiral HNPs show different surface morphologies, porous and zigzag, dependent on the solvents used. Blends of polystyrene functionalized with hydroxyl groups and PHEMA show different morphology and thermal properties compared with the core–shell HNP system. The chiral HNPs self-assembled into donut like structures or toroids with sizes in the range between 200 to 5000 nm. The study suggests that chirality can be utilized to develop interesting self-assembled structures.
Highlights
More than a half-century a er Feynman presented a talk entitled “There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” nanoscale research has been developing at an ever expanding rate.[1]
Living anionic polymerization was used to synthesize cross-linked polystyrene cores functionalized with hydroxyl groups and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) was carried out to prepare PHEMA hairs following the gra ing form technique
We have successfully synthesized phase separated polymeric Hairy nanoparticles (HNPs) consisting of PS cores and PHEMA hairs by combining living anionic polymerization and ATRP techniques
Summary
More than a half-century a er Feynman presented a talk entitled “There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” nanoscale research has been developing at an ever expanding rate.[1]. Nanoparticles have much better properties than the bulk materials and, in some cases, show novel properties. The synthesis, assembly, characterization, and applications of nanoparticles have been reported in detail.[2,3] Hairy nanoparticles (HNPs) which fall under the category of nanoparticles can be broadly de ned as comprising a core (inner material) and a shell (outer layer material). The synthesis of HNPs is of signi cant interest because of the possibility for constructing novel functional nanostructured materials. The inorganic core–shell nanoparticles have been of interest because they can exhibit superior properties arising from the combination of characteristics and properties of the core particles and polymer components.[4,5] They possess unique chemical, physical, or biological properties due to their small size (10 nm to 100 nm), the increasing surface area to volume ratio and the presence of multiple
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