Related papers: The diffusive dynamics and electrochemical regulat…
The formation of coacervates through phase separation of oppositely charged polyelectrolytes (PEs) is critical for understanding biological condensates and developing responsive materials. Traditionally, coacervates are viewed as spherical…
Liquid-liquid phase separation has emerged as one of the important paradigms in the chemical physics as well as biophysics of charged macromolecular systems. We elucidate an equilibrium phase separation mechanism based on charge regulation,…
Understanding the behavior of charged complex fluids is crucial for a plethora of important industrial, technological, and medical applications. Using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, here we investigate the properties of a…
We introduce a generalized non-uniform mean-field formalism to describe the dissociation of weak rod-like polyelectrolytes (PEs). Our approach allows for two-sublattice symmetry breaking which in titration curves is associated with a…
Electrostatic interactions in polymeric systems are responsible for a wide range of liquid-liquid phase transitions that are of importance for biology and materials science. Such transitions are referred to as complex coacervation, and…
Complex coacervation, known as the liquid-liquid phase separation of solutions with oppositely charged polyelectrolytes, has attracted substantial interest in recent years. We study the effect of the charge regulation (CR) mechanism on the…
Coupled ionic and electronic transport underpins processes as diverse as electrochemical energy conversion, biological signaling, and soft adaptive electronics. Yet, how chemical environments such as pH modulate this coupling at the…
It is generally assumed that hydrodynamics in dense polyelectrolyte (PE) solutions, such as semidilute PE solutions and PE complex coacervates, is heavily screened and inconsequential. Here, using mesoscale molecular dynamics that…
The influence of the chain degree of ionization on the adsorption of weak polyelectrolytes on neutral and on oppositely and likely charged surfaces is investigated for the first time, by means of Monte Carlo simulations with the mesoscopic…
In this work, a comprehensive study about the influence on shear viscosity of polyelectrolyte concentration, persistence length, salt concentration and solvent quality is reported, using numerical simulations of confined solutions under…
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…
Globular proteins as well as recently synthesized colloids engineered with differently charged surface regions have in common a reduced bonding valence and a complex interaction pattern dominated by like-charge attraction and…
The functionalities and applications of complex coacervates -- liquid condensates resulting from liquid-liquid phase separation of charged polymers -- are significantly influenced by the dispersion and aggregation states of guest…
We study phase equilibria in a minimal model of charge-regulated polymer solutions. Our model consists of a single polymer species whose charge state arises from protonation-deprotonation processes in the presence of a dissolved acid, whose…
We present a theory for phase-separated liquid coacervates with salt, taking into account spatial heterogeneities and interfacial profiles. We find that charged layers of alternating sign can form around the interface while the bulk phases…
Within the Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) approach electrolytes in contact with planar, spherical, and cylindrical electrodes are analyzed systematically. The dependences of their capacitance $C$ on the surface charge density $\sigma$ and the ionic…
A new type of phase separation in the polyelectrolyte solutions consisting of several types of charged macromolecules differing in their degree of ionization is predicted via a general thermodynamic consideration. We show that even a small…
Phase separation in salt-free symmetric mixtures of oppositely charged rodlike polyelectrolytes is studied using quasi-analytical calculations. Stability analyses for the isotropic-isotropic and the isotropic-nematic phase transitions in…
Using the complex Langevin sampling strategy, field theoretic simulations are performed to study the equilibrium phase behavior and structure of symmetric polycation-polyanion mixtures without salt in good solvents. Static structure factors…
We present a minimal model to study liquid phase separation in a fixed pH ensemble. The model describes a mixture composed of macromolecules that exist in three different charge states and have a tendency to phase separate. We introduce the…