Poly(ethylene oxide)/poly(propylene oxide) block copolymer surfactants

Abstract

Block copolymers consisting of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and poly(propylene oxide) (PPO) can self-assemble in water and water/oil mixtures (where water is a selective solvent for PEO and oil a selective solvent for PPO) to form thermodynamically stable spherical micelles as well as an array of lyotropic liquid crystalline mesophases of varying morphology. Significant advances have been made over the past year on the identification of different morphologies, the delineation of the composition-temperature ranges where they occur, and the structural characterization of the morphologies using primarily small angle scattering techniques. Important new findings on the copolymer micellization in water as affected by cosolutes, and on the time-dependency of the surface activity have also been reported.