Emulsion Confinement Self-Assembly Induced Localization of Ag NPs in Janus Polymeric Superparticles

Abstract

Ag nanoparticles (Ag NPs) showing excellent optical, antistatic and antibiotic properties have been widely applied in antibacterial materials and wearable device, the improvement of oxidative stability of Ag NPs as well as their interfacial interaction with surrounding matrix are the pre-requests for these applications. Emulsion confinement self-assembly of block copolymer and Ag NPs has been considered as one of the most effective strategy to prepare hybrid functional superparticles. Herein, different structured polyarylene ether nitrile (PEN) was employeed as surface capping agent to synthesis Ag NPs and then encapsulated in amphiphilic block copolymer of PEN (amPEN) via emulsion self-assembly. Homo-SHQ shows strongest interaction with Ag+ and the average size of synthesized Ag NPs is about 25 nm. Interestingly, we found that the obtained Ag NPs modified amPEN super-particles showed Janus structure, which is attributed to the controlled localization of Ag NPs in amPEN microparticles enabled by the preferred interfacial interaction. Given the diverse characteristics of Ag NPs, the present work will open the way for self-assembly of Ag NPs to obtain functional devices.