Nanoparticle Loading Induced Morphological Transitions and Size Fractionation of Coassemblies from PS-b-PAA with Quantum Dots.

Inorganic nanoparticles play a very important role in the fabrication and regulation of desirable hybrid structures with block copolymers. In this study, polystyrene-b-poly(acrylic acid) (PS48-b-PAA67) and oleic acid-capped CdSe/CdS core/shell quantum dots (QDs) are coassembled in tetrahydrofuran (THF) through gradual water addition. QDs are incorporated into the hydrophilic PAA blocks because of the strong coordination between PAA blocks and the surface of QDs. Increasing the weight fraction of QDs (ω = 0-0.44) leads to morphological transitions from hybrid spherical micelles to large compound micelles (LCMs) and then to bowl-shaped structures. The coassembly process is monitored using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Formation mechanism of different morphologies is further proposed in which the PAA blocks bridging QDs manipulates the polymer chain mobility and the resulting morphology. Furthermore, the size and size distribution of assemblies serving as drug carriers will influence the circulation time, organ distribution and cell entry pathway of assemblies. Therefore, it is important to prepare or isolate assemblies with monodisperse or narrow size distribution for biomedical applications. Here, the centrifugation and membrane filtration techniques are applied to fractionate polydisperse coassemblies, and the results indicate that both techniques provide effective size fractionation.