Facile Fabrication of Water Dispersible Latex Particles with Homogeneous or Chain-Segregated Surface from RAFT Polymerization Using a Mixture of Two Macromolecular Chain Transfer Agents.

Water dispersible latex particles with randomly mixed shells or chain segregated surface are synthesized from one-pot reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer heterogeneous polymerization of benzyl methacrylate (BzMA) using a mixture of poly(glycerol monomethacrylate) (PGMA) and poly(2,3-bis(succinyloxy)propyl methacrylate) (PBSPMA) macromolecular chain transfer agents. In methanol, the two in situ synthesized PGMA-b-PBzMA and PBSPMA-b-PBzMA diblock copolymers coaggregate into spherical micelles, which contain PBzMA core and discrete PGMA and PBSPMA nanodomains on the shell. In contrast, in water-methanol mixture (V/V = 9/1), latex particles with homogeneous distribution of PGMA and PBSPMA polymer chains on the shell are obtained. The reasons leading to formation of latex particles with homogenous or chain-segregated surface are discussed, and polymerization kinetics and physical state of PBSPMA in methanol and water-methanol mixtures are ascribed. These polymeric micelles with patterned functional group on the surface are potentially important for application in supracolloidal hierarchical assemblies and catalysis.