The effect of homopolymer adding on aggregation behavior in amphiphilic triblock copolymers containing rigid blocks

X. -G. Han; H. Zhang; Z. H. Sun; M. Y. Zhu

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arXiv · 2609.23626

The effect of homopolymer adding on aggregation behavior in amphiphilic triblock copolymers containing rigid blocks

X. -G. Han·H. Zhang·Z. H. Sun·M. Y. Zhu

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Abstract

The effect of B homopolymer adding on the aggregation behavior of amphiphilic coil/rod/coil BAB triblock copolymers was studied using lattice self-consistent field theory. It depends on the length of the hydrophobic rod block and copolymer concentration. Compared with the solutions, at low concentrations, homopolymer addition is favorable to the emergence of cubic and large lamellar micelles. Although it enriches the structural behavior, the rearrangement is suppressed. As rod blocks increase, the rearrangement is related to the orientation-dependent diffusion and inverse diffusion processes. At relatively high concentrations, adding homopolymers promotes rearrangement. For long rod block case, the arrangements related to inverse laminarization and the cooperative growth emerges. At high concentrations, for short rod block system, homopolymer addition is advantageous to micelle rearrangement concerned with order/disorder transition, and the rearrangements in the system of intermediate length and long rod blocks are suppressed. This work aids in understanding of the growth mechanism of micelles with rigid block cores.

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X. -G. Han, H. Zhang, Z. H. Sun, M. Y. Zhu. 2026-09-20. The effect of homopolymer adding on aggregation behavior in amphiphilic triblock copolymers containing rigid blocks. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.23626

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