Self-assembled,wormlike-cylinder network of polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene oxide) micelles in solution

We report the formation of a highly entangled and interconnected, self-assembled, wormlike-cylinder network of polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene oxide) in N, N-dimethylformamide/water. In this system, N,N-dimethylformamide was a common solvent and water was a selective solvent for the poly(ethylene oxide) blocks. The degrees of polymerization of the polystyrene and poly(ethylene oxide) blocks were 962 and 227, respectively. The network was formed at copolymer concentrations higher than 0.4 wt % and consisted of self-assembled, wormlike cylinders that were interconnected by Y-shaped, T-shaped, and multiple junctions. The network morphology was visualized with transmission electron microscopy. Capillary viscometry measurements revealed an order-of-magnitude increase in the inherent viscosity of the colloidal system upon the formation of the network. A similar effort to obtain a wormlike-cylinder network in an N,N-dimethylformamide/acetonitrile system, in which acetonitrile was a selective solvent for the poly(ethylene oxide) blocks, was unsuccessful even at high copolymer concentrations; instead, the wormlike cylinders showed a tendency to align. The viscosity measurements also did not show a substantial increase in the inherent viscosity. Thus, the solvent played a critical role in determining the formation of the self-assembled, wormlike-cylinder network. This formation of the network resulted from an interplay between the end-capping energy, bending energy (curvature), and configurational entropy of the self-assembled, wormlike-cylinder micelles that minimized the free energy. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 3605–3611, 2006