(604b) Liquid Shear-Based Nanofabrication Technique As a Tool for Producing a Plethora of Soft Polymeric Morphologies

Soft polymeric materials in the form of particle, rod, sheet, and fiber dispersions form the core of many products that make modern society possible. In many cases, the essential functionality of these materials is derived from, or enhanced by, their morphology and nano- and microscale features. As a result, the efficient, controlled, and scalable manufacture of these soft materials has been a topic of significant interest in both fundamental and applied science. Many fabrication techniques can be used to produce morphologies including particles, fibers, ribbons, and membranes out of a variety of polymers. Yet, they may be limited in scalability or in the variety of structures produced. We will explore a method to fabricate diverse polymer morphologies based on the concept of interfacial precipitation in multiphasic flow. Previously, this technique revealed the formation of microrod, fiber, and dendritic morphologies. Here, we demonstrate that these are just a few of the multitude of colloidal polymer structures that this liquid nanofabrication technique can produce. By developing a basic model which delineates the physical processes into three operational stages (hydrodynamic shear, mechanical response, and precipitation rate), we have identified twelve distinct classes of polymer micro- and nanostructures through the systematic investigation of the process conditions. The results are interpreted based on the model which delineates the physical processes into three stages: hydrodynamic shear, capillary and mechanical breakup, and precipitation rate. These insights on the method’s underlying fundamental mechanisms may help guide us towards the development of an “all-in-one” scalable nanofabrication platform.