Related papers: Self-assembly of spherical interpolyelectrolyte co…
Mobile charge in an electrolytic solution can in principle be represented as the divergence of ionic polarization. After adding explicit solvent polarization a finite volume of electrolyte can then be treated as a composite non-uniform…
A novel type of hybrid colloids is presented, based on the association of several polymeric systems and ferrofluids. On the one hand, we use inorganic nanoparticles made of magnetic iron oxide prepared at the LI2C, which response to a…
A multiple-image method is developed to accurately calculate the electrostatic interaction between neutral dielectric particles and a uniformly charged dielectric substrate. The difference in dielectric constants between the particle and…
We investigate, within a local density functional theory formalism, the interactions between like-charged polyions immersed in a confined electrolyte. We obtain a simple condition for a repulsive effective pair potential, that can be…
The behavior of polyelectrolytes between charged surfaces immersed in semi-dilute solutions is investigated theoretically. A continuum mean field approach is used for calculating numerically concentration profiles between two electrodes…
Polyelectrolyte complexation plays an important role in materials science and biology. The internal structure of the resultant polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) phase dictates properties such as physical state, response to external stimuli, and…
The collapse of flexible polyelectrolytes in a solution of multivalent counterions is studied by means of a two state model. The states correspond to rod-like and spherically collapsed conformations respectively. We focus on the very dilute…
We analyze solutions of strongly charged chains bridged by linkers such as multivalent ions. The gelation induced by the strong short range electrostatic attractions is dramatically suppressed by the long range electrostatic correlations…
In the present work, we study the equilibrium conformations of linear polyelectrolytes tethered onto a spherical, oppositely charged core in equilibrium with an ionic reservoir of fixed concentration. Particular focus is placed on the…
If particles interact according to isotropic pair potentials that favor multiple length scales, in principle a large variety of different complex structures can be achieved by self-assembly. We present, motivate, and discuss a conjecture…
Representing polyether-salt systems by chains of interacting coordination shells, defined by the cation and by its nearest ligands, we derive the interaction potential between closest shells -- the inter-shells potential -- in terms of…
The complexation between charged-neutral block copolymers and oppositely charged surfactants was investigated by light scattering experiments and by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). The copolymer was poly(sodium…
We present a simple model for the possible mechanism of appearance of attraction between like charged polyions inside a polyelectrolyte solution. The attraction is found to be short ranged, and exists only in presence of multivalent…
We study the structure of complexes formed between ionic surfactants (SF) and a single oppositely charged polyelectrolyte (PE) chain. For our computer simulation we use the ``primitive'' electrolyte model: while the polyelectrolyte is…
Polarizable particle systems, including charged colloids, polarizable ions, biomolecular assemblies, and soft nanomaterials, can exhibit contact electrostatic interactions that depart strongly from Coulomb behavior when dielectric mismatch…
We theoretically study sedimentation-diffusion equilibrium of dilute binary, ternary, and polydisperse mixtures of colloidal particles with different buoyant masses and/or charges. We focus on the low-salt regime, where the entropy of the…
We present a theory for the equilibrium structure of polyelectrolyte solutions. The main element is a simple, new optimization scheme that allows theories such as the random phase approximation (RPA) to handle the harsh repulsive forces…
The phase separation of oppositely-charged polyelectrolytes in solution is of current interest . In this work we study the driving force for polyelectrolyte complexation using molecular dynamics simulations. We calculate the potential of…
We report on the electrostatic complexation between polyelectrolyte-neutral copolymers and oppositely charged 6 nm-crystalline nanoparticles. For two different dispersions of oxide nanoparticles, the electrostatic complexation gives rise to…
Electrostatic interactions play an important role in numerous self-assembly phenomena, including colloidal aggregation. Although colloids typically have a dielectric constant that differs from the surrounding solvent, the effective…