DPD Simulations of PMMA-Oleic Acid Mixture Behaviour in Organic Capped Nanoparticle Based Polymer Nanocomposite

Dissipative Particle Dynamics has been used to investigate the different morphology of polymer nanocomposites. Such a study was addressed to the definition of a suitable tool for understanding the distribution of oleic acid (OA) capped nanoparticles embedded into poly-methylmethacrylate (PMMA) matrix for the formation of nanocomposite materials. In particular, simulations of PMMA/OA mixtures at different composition have exhibited the self-assembly of amphiphiles to form separated nanosized domains with different morphologies going from spheres, to tubules up to the formation of continuous planar sheets as the OA composition increases. On the other hand, simulations carried out on nanocomposite systems have shown that NPs do not perturb the observed phase behaviour of PMMA/OA mixtures. In fact, at low OA compositions nanoparticles are confined in the spherical lipid domains to form NP clusters, while at high OA composition NPs appear homogeneously distributed in the continuous lipid domain.