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A Simple and Effective Approach to Vesicles and Large Compound Vesicles via Complexation of Amphiphilic Block Copolymer With Polyelectrolyte in Water
Author(s) -
Salim Nisa V.,
Hanley Tracey L.,
Waddington Lynne,
Hartley Patrick G.,
Guo Qipeng
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
macromolecular rapid communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.348
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1521-3927
pISSN - 1022-1336
DOI - 10.1002/marc.201100839
Subject(s) - copolymer , amphiphile , vesicle , polyelectrolyte , aqueous solution , polymer chemistry , ethylene oxide , acrylic acid , materials science , polymersome , micelle , self assembly , polystyrene , chemistry , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , membrane , organic chemistry , polymer , biochemistry , engineering
This work reports for the first time a simple and effective approach to trigger a spheres‐to‐ vesicles morphological transition from amphiphilic block copolymer/polyelectrolyte complexes in aqueous solution. Vesicles and large compound vesicles (LCVs) were prepared via complexation of polystyrene‐ block ‐poly(ethylene oxide) (PS‐ b ‐PEO) with poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) in water and directly visualized using cryo‐TEM. The complexation and morphological transitions were driven by the hydrogen bonding between the complementary binding sites on the PAA and PEO blocks of the block copolymer. The findings in this work suggest that complexation between amphiphilic block copolymer and polyelectrolyte is a viable approach to vesicles and LCVs in aqueous media.