Multicompartment nanoparticles from the self-assembly of mixtures of ABC and AC block copolymers in C-selective solvents

•The self-assembly of ABC/AC mixtures in C selective solvents was studied.•Monte Carlo method was applied in this study.•The effects of various control parameters on micellar structures were examined.

The self-assembly of the mixtures of linear ABC triblock and AC diblock copolymers in C-selective solvents is studied by Monte Carlo simulation. The effects of various control parameters, including the block length, proportions of ABC and AC copolymers, solvent quality, and the incompatibility between different block components, on the micellar structures are examined. Some interesting multicompartment nanoparticles, such as the hamburger-like, ring-coiled-rod and reversed hamburger-like nanoparticles are predicted in our simulations. Moreover, the configurations of polymer chains in different multicompartment nanoparticles are revealed by the contact numbers between different components.

Graphical abstractDownload full-size image