Synthesis of structured nanoparticles of styrene/butadiene block copolymers via RAFT seeded emulsion polymerization

The structured nanoparticles of styrene (St) and butadiene (Bd) block copolymers were prepared by RAFT seeded emulsion polymerization of butadiene. It was confirmed that the block copolymers of PSt-b-P(St-co-Bd) was formed with controlled molecular weight and rather low PDI at low composition of the P(St-co-Bd) segment. With more incorporation of butadiene, the branching reaction of polybutadiene became obvious, leading to higher PDI and positive deviation of M_n from the theoretical predication. At the gel point, the composition of the P(St-co-Bd) segment was estimated to be 0.72. After this, the gel fraction increased quickly. The morphology of structured nanoparticles could be largely tuned simply by the copolymer composition. With the composition of the P(St-co-Bd) segment increased from 0.37 to 0.92, the morphology within the structured particles changed from the polybutadiene domains-in-polystyrene matrix, perforated concentric-spherical layer, concentric-spherical multi-layers, bi-continuous, to broken layers of polystyrene in polybutadiene matrix. It was found that the morphology of the block copolymer within nanoparticles was dependent on d/L values, which was in excellent agreement with the theoretical prediction.