A New Self-Consistent Field Model of Polymer/Nanoparticle Mixture.
A New Self-Consistent Field Model of Polymer/Nanoparticle Mixture.
复制标题
聚合物/纳米粒子混合物的新自洽场模型
DOI：
10.1038/srep20355
复制
发表时间：
2016-02-01
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Tian WD
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chen K;Li HS;Zhang BK;Li J;Tian WD
场论方法是预测聚合物体系组装结构的有效方法。然而，由于其多尺度性质，将这种方法推广到研究聚合物/纳米颗粒混合物具有挑战性。在这里，我们开发了一个新的基于场的模型，统一的纳米粒子的描述与聚合物领域内的自洽场理论。代替“整体平均”连续分布，最终形态中的颗粒密度可以代表位于优选位置的单个颗粒。颗粒密度的离散性使我们的模型能够正确地处理聚合物-颗粒界面和排除体积相互作用。我们使用这个模型来研究最简单的系统的纳米粒子浸没在稠密的均聚物溶液。调整界面细节的灵活性使我们的模型能够捕捉到丰富的现象，如桥接聚集和耗尽吸引力。洞察力的结构变化，由于耗尽和界面之间的相互作用的竞争，获得的duppic和/或熵的起源。这种方法很容易扩展到更复杂的聚合物基纳米复合材料或生物相关系统的研究，如树枝状聚合物/药物封装和膜/颗粒组装。
Field-theoretical method is efficient in predicting assembling structures of polymeric systems. However, it’s challenging to generalize this method to study the polymer/nanoparticle mixture due to its multi-scale nature. Here, we develop a new field-based model which unifies the nanoparticle description with the polymer field within the self-consistent field theory. Instead of being “ensemble-averaged” continuous distribution, the particle density in the final morphology can represent individual particles located at preferred positions. The discreteness of particle density allows our model to properly address the polymer-particle interface and the excluded-volume interaction. We use this model to study the simplest system of nanoparticles immersed in the dense homopolymer solution. The flexibility of tuning the interfacial details allows our model to capture the rich phenomena such as bridging aggregation and depletion attraction. Insights are obtained on the enthalpic and/or entropic origin of the structural variation due to the competition between depletion and interfacial interaction. This approach is readily extendable to the study of more complex polymer-based nanocomposites or biology-related systems, such as dendrimer/drug encapsulation and membrane/particle assembly.