Morphology and thermoresponsive behavior of hybrid micelles of polystyrene-b-poly((N-isopropyl acrylamide)-co-(4-vinylbenzyl chloride)) with Prussian blue

The hybrid micelles of polystyrene-b-poly((N-isopropyl acrylamide)-co-(4-vinylbenzyl chloride)) block copolymer(PS-b-P(NIPAM-co-VBC)) with Prussian blue(PB) in the corona were prepared by reaction of pentacyano(4-(dimethylamino)-pyridine)ferrate(Fe-DMAP)-attached PS-b-P(NIPAM-co-VBC) with Fe Cl3. The formation of the PB framework inside the micelles was verified by UV-Vis, FTIR and TGA. The morphology of the hybrid micelles was studied by TEM and compared with that of the neat and Fe-DMAP-attached PS-b-P(NIPAM-co-VBC). It is found that attachment of Fe-DMAP may change the short rod-like micelles of the neat PS-b-P(NIPAM-co-VBC) into spherical ones and lead to a smaller micelle size. The morphology of the hybrid micelles may be altered or remain unchanged after formation of the PB framework, depending on the chain structure of PS-b-P(NIPAM-co-VBC) and starting concentration. The thermoresponsive behavior of different micelles was studied using DLS. It is observed that attachment of Fe-DMAP can improve the hydrophilicity of the P(NIPAM-co-VBC) block, leading to weaker hysteresis of the micelle size during the heating and cooling cycle. However, the crosslinked PB framework in the micellar corona may result in a more evident hysteresis phenomenon and blur the two-stepwise change of the micellar size with temperature.