Related papers: Polymer Crowding and Shape Distributions in Polyme…
We study the influence of structural obstacles in a disordered environment on the size and shape characteristics of long flexible polymer macromolecules. We use the model of self-avoiding random walks on diluted regular lattices at the…
The permeability of certain polymer membranes with impenetrable nanoinclusions increases with the particle volume fraction (Merkel et al., Science, 296, 2002). This intriguing observation contradicts even qualitative expectations based on…
The role of macromolecular crowding in living systems is widely appreciated, but artificial crowders used to model these effects in vitro are often inadequately characterized. In this work, we examine density, viscosity, polymer…
Macromolecular crowding plays a crucial role in modulating protein dynamics in cellular and in vitro environments. Polymeric crowders such as dextran and Ficoll are known to induce entropic forces, including depletion interactions, that…
We study the effect of the crowded nature of the cellular cytoplasm on the translocation of a polymer through a pore in a membrane. By systematically treating the entropic penalty due to crowding, we show that the translocation dynamics are…
This paper presents a study of the polymer-filler interfacial effects on filler dispersion and mechanical reinforcement in Polystyrene (PS) / silica nanocomposites by direct comparison of two model systems: un-grafted and PS-grafted silica…
We investigate the role played by the bidispersity of polymer chains on the local structure and the potential of mean force (PMF) between silica nanoparticles (NPs) in a polystyrene melt. We use the hybrid particle-field molecular dynamics…
We elucidate the structural transitions in a helical off-lattice homopolymer induced by crowding agents, as function of the number of monomers ($N$) and volume fraction ($\phi_c$) of crowding particles. At $\phi_c = 0$, the homopolymer…
Mixtures of nanoparticles and polymer-like objects are encountered in many nanotechnological applications and biological systems. We study the behavior of grafted polymer layers decorated by nanoparticles that are attracted to the polymers…
Co-assembly of inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) and nanostructured polymer matrix represents an intricate interplay of enthalpic or entropic forces. Particle size largely affects the phase behavior of the nanocomposite. Theoretical studies…
Nobel metals that are deposited on a polymer surface exhibit surface diffusion and diffusion into the bulk. At the same time the metal atoms tend to form clusters because their cohesive energy is about two orders of magnitude higher than…
Biomolecular condensates are essential for cellular organization and result from phase separation in systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Among various models, chemically active droplets play a significant role, consisting of…
We perform a thermodynamic analysis of the polymerization-induced phase separation in nanoparticle-monomer-polymer blends using a simple model recently proposed by V. V. Ginzburg (Macromolecules 2005, 38, 2362.). The model was adapted for…
Nanoscale and microscale confinement of biopolymers naturally occurs in cells and has been recently achieved in artificial structures designed for nanotechnological applications. Here, we present an extensive theoretical investigation of…
Extensive coarse grained molecular dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the conformational phase diagram of a neutral polymer in the presence of attractive crowders. We show that, for low crowded densities, the polymer…
Experiments using nanofluidic devices have proven effective in characterizing the physical properties of polymers confined to small cavities. Two recent studies using such methods examined the organization and dynamics of two DNA molecules…
Powdered materials of sizes ranging from nanometers to microns are widely used in materials science and are carefully selected to enhance the performance of a matrix. Fillers have been used in order to improve, among the others, mechanical,…
The structural and thermodynamic properties of mixtures of colloidal spheres and non-adsorbing polymer chains are studied within a novel general two-component macromolecular liquid state approach applicable for all size asymmetry ratios.…
Polymers confined to a narrow channel are subject to strong entropic forces that tend to drive the molecules apart. In this study, we use Monte Carlo computer simulations to study the segregation behavior of two flexible hard-sphere…
Polymer-grafted nanoparticles are versatile building blocks that self-assemble into a rich diversity of mesostructures. Coarse-grained molecular simulations have commonly accompanied experiments by resolving structure formation pathways and…