Industrial applications of the aggregation of block copolymers in supercritical CO2: a SANS study

Industrial applications of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) rely upon the rather selective and easily adjustable solvent ability of CO2. CO2 near the critical point is a poor solvent for high molecular weight (HMW) hydrocarbon polymers, while it is a very good solvent for amorphous fluorinated polymers. By increasing the pressure, CO2 becomes a good solvent even for HMW hydrogenated chains. Specially engineered amphiphilic di-block copolymers, with CO2-philic and CO2-phobic portions, are expected to undergo trough a monomer–aggregate transition when the solvent density of the scCO2 changes. Here small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) results are reported for a block copolymer dissolved in liquid and supercritical CO2. Time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering (TR-SAXS) results are also reported.