2024 AIChE Annual Meeting
Modeling Telechelic Triblock Polymers for Nanoemulsion Stabilization
Tailoring the rheological properties of emulsions is a key materials development objective for applications ranging from pharmaceuticals to 3D printing. Often, this task can be achieved by introducing telechelic triblock polymers into the emulsion, which can bridge between emulsion droplets and create a system-spanning viscoelastic network. In this work, we performed molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the interfacial behavior of model systems of telechelic triblock polymers, and evaluated the propensity to form bridges vs. loops at the liquid-liquid interface as a function of triblock polymer design. In particular, we studied coarse-grained polymer chains of varying mid-block stiffness at a flat fluid-fluid interface, mimicking the assembly of triblocks at the surface of a large emulsion droplet. We examined the polymer confirmation at the interface (i.e., the propensity to form bridges between emulsion droplets) as a function of the polymer design and the inter-droplet spacing. Our preliminary results show that, regardless of midblock stiffness, looped configurations dominate when the inter-droplet spacing is on the order of the midblock contour length. However, ongoing simulations will further evaluate how properties such as stiffness, chain length, polymer-solvent interaction strength, and inter-droplet spacing affect the interfacial behavior of the polymer, aiding in the future design of these complex fluids.