Modification of the lyotropic liquid crystalline microstructure of amphiphilic block copolymers in the presence of cosolvents

Probing competitive interactions in quaternary formulations

“…It has been well established that Pluronics form temperature sensitive micelles that adopt a core-shell morphology, where the more hydrophobic domain (PPO) forms the core and the hydrophilic domain (PEO) forms the hydrophilic corona, i.e. the shell [8][9][10][11][12].…”

“…The improvement in performance arises due to the synergistic or antagonistic interactions between the various surfactants [13]. A considerable number of studies have focused on determining the onset of the micellization process and the composition/morphology of the mixed micelles formed [9,[14][15][16], though theoretical modelling is limited to systems that are considerably more simple than generally encountered in 'real-life' formulations [17,18] .…”

Effect of Ethanol on the Rheological Properties of Water‐Rich Gels of Diblock Copolymer E43B11

“…Ethanol has been investigated previously as a cosolvent in solutions of several commercially-available E m P n E m block copolymers [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] and for an E/P copolymer with two statistical blocks synthesized in our laboratory. [16] For dilute aqueous solutions, addition of ethanol has been found to increase the critical micelle concentration (cmc) of copolymers E 61 P 40 E 61 (F87) [8] and E 98 P 67 E 98 (F127), [9] and, correspondingly, to increase the critical micelle temperature of F127.…”

“…coworkers of gel formation and structure using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and ethanol-water solutions of copolymers E 37 P 58 E 37 (P105) have been reviewed, [13] and related investigations of E 100 P 70 E 100 (F127) in ethanolwater mixtures have been reported. [14,15] With increase in copolymer concentration, and for solutions with 20 wt.-% ethanol or less, the mesophases reported for copolymer F127 are successively unimer/micelle solution, spherical micelles forming cubic gel, and cylindrical micelles forming hexagonal gel, the latter at copolymer concentration in excess of 60 wt.-%.…”

“…[14,15] For copolymer P105 the sequence extends at high concentration to gyroid and lamellar mesophases. [13] Copolymer E 43 B 11 falls into the series of E m B n copolymers which have been closely studied by our group. [1] In particular it is closely related to copolymers E 41 B 8 , E 40 B 10 and E 50 B 13 .…”