Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) was used to synthesize the block copolymers of poly(acrylonitrile)-b-poly(ethylene-glycol)-b-poly(acrylonitrile) (PAN-b-PEG-b-PAN). The copolymers were characterized by using ¹H NMR, FTIR spectra and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The thermostabilities of these copolymers were investigated by TG and DTA. Transmission electron microscope (TEM), fluorescence spectroscopy and dy-namic light scattering (DLS) were used for the investigation of the self-assembly of the copolymers. Com-paring the thermostabilities of PEG, the thermostabilities of P(AN)₂₇-b-P(EG)₄₅-b-P(AN)₂₇ were improved and the exothermic peak position of the copolymers had no obvious changes when PEG blocks existed. The re-sults of the TEM observations showed that polymeric micelles of P(AN)₂₇-b-P(EG)₄₅-b-P(AN)₂₇ copolymers were almost different shaped, when P(AN)₂₇-b-P(EG)₄₅- b-P(AN)₂₇ copolymer concentrations were altered and micelle size obtained from DLS was bigger than that from TEM and the critical micelle concentration (cmc) of the copolymers was 4.46×10^－4 g•L^－1.

Key words: atom transfer radical polymerization, block copolymer, self-assembly