Related papers: Phase Transitions in Soft Matter Induced by Select…
Hydrophobic interactions are central to biological self-assembly and soft matter organization, yet their microscopic origins remain debated. A key hallmark is the strengthening of attraction between hydrophobic solutes with increasing…
Using density functional theory we calculate the density profiles of a binary solvent adsorbed around a pair of big solute particles. All species interact via repulsive Gaussian potentials. The solvent exhibits fluid-fluid phase separation…
We examine phase separation in aqueous mixtures at fixed amounts of hydrophilic monovalent ions. When water is the minority component, preferential solvation can stabilize water domains enriched with ions. This ion-induced precipitation…
The forces between charged macromolecules, usually given in terms of osmotic pressure, are highly affected by the intervening ionic solution. While in most theoretical studies the solution is treated as a homogeneous structureless…
We calculate the interaction potential between two colloids immersed in an aqueous mixture containing salt near or above the critical temperature. We find an attractive interaction far from the coexistence curve due to the combination of…
Solvation of ions is ubiquitous on our planet. Solvated ions have a profound effect on the behavior of ionic solutions, which is crucial in nature and technology. Experimentally, ions have been classified into "structure makers" or…
We present an overview of the recent progress that has been made in understanding the origin of hydrophobic interactions. We discuss the different character of the solvation behavior of apolar solutes at small and large length scales. We…
Effect of ionic solute on a near-critical binary aqueous mixture confined between charged walls with different adsorption preferences is considered within a simple density functional theory. For the near-critical system containing small…
We study discrete solvent effects on the interaction of two parallel charged surfaces in ionic aqueous solution. These effects are taken into account by adding a bilinear non-local term to the free energy of Poisson-Boltzmann theory. We…
For binary solvent mixtures composed of ions and two kinds of polar solvents, electric double layer near a charged object is strongly affected by not only the binary solvent composition but also nature of solvents such as volume and dipole…
We develop a model of interacting zwitterionic membranes with rotating surface dipoles immersed in a monovalent salt, and implement it in a field theoretic formalism. In the mean-field regime of monovalent salt, the electrostatic forces…
We investigate theoretically the phase diagram of an insoluble charged surfactant monolayer in contact with a semi-dilute polyelectrolyte solution (of opposite charge). The polyelectrolytes are assumed to have long-range and attractive…
A number of experimental and theoretical findings in age hardening alloys suggest that specific solute elements preferentially segregate to and reduce the energy of the interphase boundary (IB). This segregation mechanism can stabilize the…
Spatially uniform electric fields have been used to induce instabilities in liquids and polymers, and to orient and deform ordered phases of block-copolymers. Here we discuss the demixing phase transition occurring in liquid mixtures when…
The present article experimentally and theoretically probes the evaporation kinetics of sessile saline droplets. Observations reveal that presence of solvated ions leads to modulated evaporation kinetics, which is further a function of…
Compared to pure fluids, binary mixtures display a very diverse phase behavior, which depends sensitively on the parameters of the microscopic potential. Here we investigate the phase diagrams of simple model mixtures by use of a…
We present a Ginzburg-Landau theory of inhomogeneous polyelectrolytes with a polar solvent. First, we take into account the molecular (solvation) interaction among the ions, the charged monomers, the uncharged monomers, and the solvent…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to demonstrate that a binary solvent can be used to stratify colloidal mixtures when the suspension is rapidly dried. The solvent consists of two components, one more volatile than the other. When…
We explore the effects of counterion condensation on fluid-fluid phase separation in charged colloidal suspensions. It is found that formation of double layers around the colloidal particles stabilizes suspensions against phase separation.…
The phase behavior of membrane proteins stems from a complex synergy with the amphiphilic molecules required for their solubilization. We show that ionization of a pH-sensitive surfactant, LDAO, bound to a bacterial photosynthetic protein,…