Dissipative particle dynamics simulation study on the mechanisms of self-assembly of large multimolecular micelles from amphiphilic dendritic multiarm copolymers
writer：Wang, Y. L.; Li, B.; Zhou, Y. F.*; Lu, Z. Y.*, Yan, D.Y.
keywords：Dissipative particle dynamics, self-assembly, multimolecular micelles, dendritic multiarm copolymers
source：期刊
specific source：Soft matter 2013, 9, 3293.
Issue time：2013年
Dendritic multiarmcopolymers, including dendrimer multiarmcopolymersand hyperbranched multiarmcopolymers, have shown great potential to be excellent
precursors inself-assembly, and many impressive
supramolecular structures have been prepared through the solution self-assembly
of them. However, the corresponding theoretical studies on the self-assembly
mechanism have been greatly lagging behind. Herein, we report the micellization
behaviors of amphiphilic dendritic multiarmcopolymerswith a hydrophobic dendritic core and many
hydrophilic arms by dissipative particle dynamics simulations. Both the
self-assembly mechanisms and the dynamic self-assembly processes for the
formation of unimolecular micelles, microphase-separated small micelles, and
large multimolecular micelles have been disclosed through the simulations. Most
importantly, the work has proved the large multimolecular micelles are a kind of
multimicelle aggregate (MMA) with two formation mechanisms. One is called the
unimolecular micelle aggregate (UMA) mechanism, which describes the formation of
large multimolecular micelles from direct aggregation of unimolecular micelles;
the other is called the small micelle aggregate (SMA) mechanism, which shows
that the dendritic multiarmcopolymersfirst
self-assemble into small micelles and then the small micelles further aggregate
into large multimolecular micelles. In addition, the microphase separation model
of the dendritic multiarmcopolymersas well as
the effects on the formations of UMAs and SMAs are also discussed. These
simulation results agree well with experimental observations, and have extended
the understanding of the micellization process of dendritic multiarmcopolymers.