Effects of nanoparticles on the stability of polymer fibers

Soft matters in confinement may deform easily upon small perturbation. Especially, polymer fibers are unstable due to a large surface area. Recent studies showed that the addition of nanoparticles (NPs) could control the stability of polymer fibers. It remains elusive how NPs would affect the disruption of polymer fibers. In this work, we perform molecular dynamics simulations for polymer fibers with NPs of different interaction types. We prepare unstable polymer fibers that disrupt into globules. We find that upon the addition of NPs, the disruption of fibers is hindered and the breakup time (τ_b) of polymer fibers increases. We find that polymer fibers with NPs are more likely to retain their morphology. The free energy barrier between the fiber and the globule would increase due to NPs. The mechanism for the stability differs for the different interaction types of NPs. When the interaction between polymers and NPs is attractive (non-attractive), τ_b increases (decreases) with a decrease in temperature. We show that different spatial arrangement of NPs leads to the different temperature dependence of τ_b.