Self-assembly of self-cleaning polystyrene/styrene-butadiene-styrene films with well-ordered micro-structures

Abstract

Well-ordered porous films have been widely applied in various areas, such as chemical sensors, microreactors, and tissue engineering. In this article, we propose a novel air-liquid interface self-assembly method to fabricate well-ordered porous polystyrene (PS)/styrene–butadiene–styrene (SBS) films by simply dipping the PS/SBS chloroform solutions onto the surface of a mixed water/ethanol liquid phase. The proper volume ratio of water/ethanol is necessary for the formation of films with highly uniform pore size. The effect of weight ratio of PS/SBS, the volume ratio of water/ethanol and the concentration of the solutions were experimentally investigated. The pore size decreases with the concentration of polymer solution, and the structure becomes more regular with the decrease of water/ethanol volume ratio. Ordered structure can be formed under PS/SBS in a certain weight ratio. The self-assembled films also have the function of self-cleaning. Besides the analysis of structural characteristic, the self-assembly mechanism was also discussed.