Self-assembly of poly(vinylidene fluoride)‎-polystyrene block copolymers in solution : effects of the length of polystyrene block and solvent compositions

Abstract EN

We report the first preliminary and extensive study on the solution self-assembly behaviors of poly(vinylidene fluoride)–b-polystyrene (PVDF–PS) block copolymers.

The two PVDF–PS polymers we examined have the same length of PVDF block with number averaged repeating unit of 180, but distinctly different lengths of PS block with number averaged repeating unit of 125 and 1202.

The self-assembly experiments were carried out in a series of mixture solutions containing a good solvent N,N-dimethylformamide and a selective solvent with different ratios.

Our results showed that the self-assembly process was greatly affected by the two factors we examined, i.e.

the length of the PS block and the solvent composition.

We hope that our study could stimulate more research on the self-assembly of PVDF-containing polymers in solution.