ИСТИНА

Polyelectrolyte micelles with the hydrophobic core and lyophylizing charged corona are the products of self-assembly of ionogenic amphiphilic block copolymers in aqueous media. Thanks to their nanoscale size, enhanced resistance towards dilution and remarkable binding and solubilizing properties polyelectrolyte micelles induce great expectations towards their application as nanocontainers and nanoreactors. Our experimental study is focused on the influence of chemical heterogeneity in corona on micelle self-assembly and micelle ability to form complexes with the oppositely charged species – linear polyions and low molecular-weight surfactants. To solve the task we start with micelles with homogeneous cationic corona (A) and subsequently "incorporate" there increasing amounts of "alien" units, which are hydrophobic (B,C) or anionic (D), distributed statistically (B) or in a block fashion (C,D). Surprisingly, but practically no changes in micelle mass or dimensions were observed until the fraction of "alien" units reached the value ca 30 mol.%. Above this limit drastic changes in micelle aggregation number, core and corona dimensions occur. These changes can be rationalized in terns of the interplay between electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions within the micelle corona. All studied micelles manifest strong binding affinity for oppositely charged macromolecules and surfactants. Nevertheless, the composition, solubility and the structure of resulting polyelectrolyte complexes were different in accordance with diversity in micelle structure induced by chemical heterogeneity. Acknowledgement The Russian Foundation for Basic Research is acknowledged for support under grant No 14-03-00155-а