Enhancement of Mechanical Performance of Nanostructured Materials by Architectural Design of Pentablock Terpolymers

Nanostructured materials consisting of multiple ordered domains can achieve a much broader range of enhanced properties in comparison with their constituent counterparts. Nanostructure engineering of block copolymers provides a potent platform for the rational design of nanostructured materials due to their broad structural palette and diverse architectures. In this contribution, integration of dynamic self-consistent field theory and lattice spring model is harnessed to investigate the nanophases and mechanical properties of nanostructured materials of architecture-designed B1AB2CB3 pentablock terpolymers, composed of incompatible A and C blocks as well as distinct B blocks with various lengths. By virtue of the change of the molecular architecture of pentablock terpolymers, a wide spectrum of spherical crystal-like nanostructures is predicted, and their structural evolution in the course of microphase separation obeys a stepwise ordering mechanism. In particular, the local segregation of the distinct B blocks provides an effective and feasible means to spatiotemporally regulate the bridge configuration of inner B2 blocks in the matrix. More importantly, the architectural design of pentablock terpolymers plays a crucial part in enhancing the mechanical performance of nanostructured materials originating from various mechanical nanolattices of truss-based analogues. The obtained results provide fundamental insight into the formation of self-assembled nanostructures of multiblock terpolymers and offer a means for boosting the mechanical properties of nanostructured materials by the architectural design of macromolecules without a change of composition.