Organization of poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline)-block-poly(2-phenyl-2-oxazoline) copolymers in water solution

Diblock copolymers were prepared from 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline and 2-phenyl-2-oxazoline via living cationic polymerization using sequential addition of the monomers. Copolymer assemblies in aqueous solutions and on surface were studied with respect to changes in the hydrophilic-hydrophobic balance induced by increasing the length of the hydrophobic poly(2-phenyl-2-oxazoline) segment while the hydrophilic poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) chain was kept constant with an average of 60 monomer units. The copolymer with a short segment of four 2-phenyl-2-oxazoline units assembled into highly hydrated aggregates that decreased twice in size after drying. Their structure was destroyed and network morphologies were formed upon spin-coating. The increase of the length of the hydrophobic segment resulted in aggregates that dissociated to micelle-sized particles when subjected to mechanical shear by spin-coating or filtering. These observations imply that the aggregates are multi-core structures originating from the assembly of primarily formed micelles. The copolymer self-assembly was evidenced by a combination of techniques: DLS, SLS, AFM and SEM.