Effect of External Stimuli-triggered Hydrophobic-Hydrophilic Transition on the Disassembly of ABCA Tetrablock Asymmetric Vesicles: a Monte Carlo Simulation Study

Yan-Qi Zong; Jie Cui; Yuan-Yuan Han

doi:10.1007/s10118-026-3778-3

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Effect of External Stimuli-triggered Hydrophobic-Hydrophilic Transition on the Disassembly of ABCA Tetrablock Asymmetric Vesicles: a Monte Carlo Simulation Study

RESEARCH ARTICLE | Updated：2026-08-19

- Effect of External Stimuli-triggered Hydrophobic-Hydrophilic Transition on the Disassembly of ABCA Tetrablock Asymmetric Vesicles: a Monte Carlo Simulation Study
- Chinese Journal of Polymer Science Vol. 44, Pages: 1-11(2026)
- Affiliations：
  
  School of New Energy and Advanced Materials, Liaoning Petrochemical University, Fushun 113001, China
- Author bio：
  
  cuijie@lnpu.edu.cn (J.C.)
  hanyuanyuan@lnpu.edu.cn (Y.Y.H.)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-026-3778-3
  CLC：
- Received：07 May 2026，
  
  Accepted：09 June 2026，
  
  Online First：19 August 2026，
  
  Published：2026-07
- Accepted：
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Zong, Y. Q.; Cui, J.; Han, Y. Y. Effect of external stimuli-triggered hydrophobic-hydrophilic transition on the disassembly of ABCA tetrablock asymmetric vesicles: a Monte Carlo simulation study. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-026-3778-3

Yan-Qi Zong, Jie Cui, Yuan-Yuan Han. Effect of External Stimuli-triggered Hydrophobic-Hydrophilic Transition on the Disassembly of ABCA Tetrablock Asymmetric Vesicles: a Monte Carlo Simulation Study[J/OL]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2026, 441-11.
Zong, Y. Q.; Cui, J.; Han, Y. Y. Effect of external stimuli-triggered hydrophobic-hydrophilic transition on the disassembly of ABCA tetrablock asymmetric vesicles: a Monte Carlo simulation study. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-026-3778-3 DOI：

Yan-Qi Zong, Jie Cui, Yuan-Yuan Han. Effect of External Stimuli-triggered Hydrophobic-Hydrophilic Transition on the Disassembly of ABCA Tetrablock Asymmetric Vesicles: a Monte Carlo Simulation Study[J/OL]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2026, 441-11. DOI： 10.1007/s10118-026-3778-3.

摘要

Abstract

Various external stimuli

such as pH

light

and temperature

have been widely used to trigger the hydrophobic-hydrophilic transition of a certain block in block copolymer

which has become a commonly used and effective strategy to induce the disassembly of vesicles for controlled drug release. Based on this

the disassembly behavior of the ABCA tetrablock asymmetric vesicles induced by the hydrophobic-hydrophilic transition of block C was studied using Monte Carlo simulation. In this work

the hydrophobicity of block C was tuned to mimic the hydrophobic-hydrophilic transition triggered by external stimuli. As the hydrophobicity of block C decreases

the initial ABCA asymmetric vesicles disassemble into a series of ordered aggregates such as Janus lamella

reversed asymmetric vesicle

toroid micelle

ring-like micelle and cylindrical micelle. It should be noted that these aggregates disassembled from the initial vesicle state cannot be obtained through the traditional self-assembly method from homogeneous states of the ABCA tetrablock terpolymers under the same conditions. The simulation results show that the hydrophobicity changing rate of block C has a significant effect on the disassembly pathway from the initial asymmetric vesicle to the reversed asymmetric vesicle. It is found that during the disassembly from the initial to the reversed vesicles

the system will undergo an energy-driven process first

then followed by an entropy-driven process. In addition

the simulation results further indicate that the disassembly behavior of the initial ABCA asymmetric vesicles is irreversible.

关键词

Keywords

references

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