Controlling the Nucleation of a Semicrystalline Polymer by Inducing Compartmentalization of Competitive Nucleating Agents.

Authors

Arnaud Y-G Delplanque, Sandra Casale, Bruno Bresson, Paolo Edera, Clément Guibert, Nathan J Van Zee

Published in

Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany). Pages e07875. Sep 15, 2025. Epub Sep 15, 2025.

Abstract

Many functional polymeric systems have been inspired by the principle of compartmentalization, a ubiquitous form of hierarchical assembly found in Nature. For instance, polymers have been elaborated with microcapsules that release a chemical payload upon activation by an external stimulus. A fascinating challenge it to design a polymeric system to perform the opposite function, i.e., to load a cargo into a dispersed minor phase. Herein, this concept is exemplified in the context of a semicrystalline polymer matrix that contains two nucleating agents, one based on a supramolecular assembly and another based on a covalent triblock copolymer. These two additives compete to nucleate the semicrystalline matrix according to their competitive nucleation efficiency. A functional copolymer is rationally designed to induce these two additives to spatially assemble together. By adding a small amount of the functional copolymer, the supramolecular assembly remarkably segregates to the block copolymer phase, which profoundly impacts the interface between the block copolymer phase and the matrix. The compartmentalized additives no longer exhibit nucleating properties for the matrix, and the resulting material shows essentially the same thermomechanical properties as the virgin matrix.

PMID:
40948144
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 15 Sep 2025.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.