Emulsion confined block copolymer self-assembly: Recent progress and prospect

In the past few decades, significant progress in block copolymer self-assembly has been achieved in many fields, and with the development of nanoscience and nanotechnology, more and more complex situations need block copolymer self-assembly based nanoplatforms having more complex structures for specific multimodal or multiplexed applications. Through the combination of emulsification and self-assembly of the block copolymer, different materials with exotic architectures and functions could be combined within an entity, such as controlled vesicles, Janus particles, and composite particles which are more like ideal nanoplatforms. Various designs can show their different desired properties depending upon the application situation, including molecular delivery, surfactants, and multicolor encoding. This review will provide a complete summary of the optimization and the synthesis method for the recently designed emulsion confined block copolymer assemblies, and also the challenges and limitations this method faces, and the potential solutions in this field.