Sphere to vesicle transition induced by polymerization in a PEB-b-PEO modified epoxy matrix

J. PUIG; I. A. ZUCCHI; R. J. J. WILLIAMS; W. F. SCHROEDER

Cancún

Simposio; XV Simposio Latinomericano de Polímeros, SLAP; 2016

Vesicles are a particularly attractive morphology to be developed in nanostructured epoxy thermosets.1 Vesicles formed from block copolymers (BCP) are closed, spherical objects consisting of a thin bilayer membrane that encases the epoxy resin. The interest in this morphology resides on the fact that the copolymer forms only the shell and the volume of the vesicle phase consists of both the shell and the encapsulated epoxy, a small amount of the block copolymer can function with a large effective modifier volume fraction. However, few studies report on nanostructured epoxy networks modified with vesicles. In all of them, the nanostructure is obtained before curing by self-assembly in the precursors, and the role of curing is to lock in the morphology that is already present.2In this work we report a different scenario in which the vesicles are formed during polymerization as the result of polymerization induced self-assembly. The mechanism of nanostructuration was investigated by in situ SAXS experiments.