Kinetics of Laterally Nanostructured Vesicle Formation by Self-Assembly of Miktoarm Star Terpolymers in Aqueous Solution

Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulation was used to study the self-assembly of laterally nanostructured vesicles in aqueous solution from μ-[poly­(ethylethylene)]-[poly­(ethylene oxide)]­[poly­(perfluoropropylene oxide)] (μ-EOF) star terpolymers. The simulated results show that the laterally nanostructured vesicle forms when the length of the hydrophilic O blocks are relatively short. In the lateral nanostructure, the hexagonally packed domains formed by the hydrophobic F blocks are immersed in a two-dimensional hydrophobic E block matrix. The formation conditions and microstructure of the vesicles in our simulation agree with the reported experimental results from the literature. The complicated formation pathway of laterally nanostructured vesicles follows three stages: (1) combination of spherical and short cylindrical raspberry-like micelles into an intermediate polygonal sheet; (2) the intermediate polygonal sheet grows to form a larger polygonal sheet with a tail; (3) the large polygonal sheet with a tail eventually folds and forms a vesicle