Evolution of Polymer Colloid Structure During Precipitation and Phase Separation.

ABSTRACT: Polymer colloids arise in a variety of contexts ranging from synthetic to natural systems. The structure of polymeric colloids is crucial to their function and application. Hence, understanding the mechanism of structure formation in polymer colloids is important to enabling advances in their production and subsequent use as enabling materials in new technologies. Here, we demonstrate how the specific pathway from precipitation to vitrification dictates the resulting morphology of colloids fabricated from polymer blends. Through continuum simulations, free energy calculations, and experiments, we reveal how colloid structure changes with the trajectory taken through the phase diagram. We demonstrate that during solvent exchange, polymer-solvent phase separation of a homogeneous condensate

SUBMITTER: Liu JX 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8395639 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature