Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of Multicompartment Micelles Self-Assembled from a Blend of Triblock Copolymers and Diblock Copolymers in an Aqueous Solution

A dissipative particle dynamics simulation was performed to study the influence of blending different linear triblock copolymers A(x)B(y)C(z) and linear diblock copolymers A(m)B(n) in an aqueous solution on the morphology diversity of the formed rnulticompartment micelles. The chain lengths of the linear triblock copolymers and diblock copolymers were varied to find the conditions of the formation of rnulticornpartment micelles. The multicompartment micelle morphologies formed by the different blends of linear triblock copolymer and linear diblock copolymer are various, such as "worm-like" micelles, "hamburger" micelles, "sphere on sphere" micelles, and "core-shell-corona" micelles etc. Controlling the overall morphology and inner structure of the multicompartment micelles was possible using binary blends of a linear triblock copolymer and a diblock copolymer. The density profiles and the pair distribution function were calculated to characterize the structures of the obtained multicompartment micelles. In this work, by blending a linear triblock copolymer and a linear diblock copolymer, complex multicompartnnent micelles were prepared and characterized. This work shows that simply blending linear triblock copolymers and linear diblock copolymers is an effective way to control the morphology and structure of multicompartment micelles. This is more economical and easy to form multicompartment micelles in the engineering experiments. Therefore, the blending of copolymers should be given more attention in future for the design of new multicompartment micelles.