Related papers: Polyelectrolyte gels in poor solvent: Equilibrium …
We study the properties of polyelectrolyte chains under different solvent conditions, using a variational technique. The free energy and the conformational properties of a polyelectrolyte chain are studied minimizing the free energy $F_N$,…
We present simulations on charged polymers in poor solvent. First we investigate in detail the dilute concentration range with and without imposed extension constraints. The resulting necklace polymer conformations are analyzed in detail.…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the behavior of a dilute solution of strongly charged polyelectrolytes in poor solvents, where we take counterions explicitly into account. We focus on the chain conformational properties under…
Polyelectrolytes in poor solvents show a necklace structure where collapsed polymer pearls are linked to stretched strings. In the present paper the elasticity of such chains is studied in detail. Different deformation regimes are…
We present two successive mean-field approximations for describing the mechanical properties and the swelling equilibrium of polyelectrolyte gels in contact with a salt solution. The first mean-field approximation reduces the many-chain…
We analyse the dynamics of different routes to collapse of a constrained polyelectrolyte gel in contact with an ionic bath. The evolution of the gel is described by a model that incorporates non-linear elasticity, Stefan-Maxwell diffusion…
We present an experimentally guided, multi-phase, multi-species polyelectrolyte gel model to make quantitative predictions on the electro-chemical properties of articular cartilage. The mixture theory consists of two different types of…
By means of a variational approach we study the conditions under which a polyelectrolyte in a bad solvent will undergo a transition from a rod-like structure to a ``necklace'' structure in which the chain collapses into a series of globules…
We study the effects of charge-regulated acid/base equilibrium on the swelling of polyelectrolyte gels, by considering a combination of the Poisson-Boltzmann theory and a two-site charge-regulation model based on the Langmuir adsorption…
Starting with a model Hamiltonian, we study using the uniform expansion method conformational behavior of polyelectrolytes in the presence and absence of salt. The uniform expansion method yields all the important local length scales in the…
We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a highly charged flexible polyelectrolyte (PE) chain in a poor solvent for the case when the chain is in a collapsed state and the electrostatic interactions, characterized by the…
We present a set of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of strongly charged, flexible polyelectrolyte chains under poor solvent conditions in a salt free solution. Structural properties of the chains and of the solutions are reported. By…
We present a novel approach to probe elastic properties of polyelectrolyte multilayer microcapsules. The method is based on measurements of the capsule load-deformation curves with the atomic force microscope. The experiment suggests that…
This paper discusses the elastic behavior of polyelectrolyte networks. The deformation behavior of single polyelectrolyte chains is discussed. It is shown that a strong coupling between interactions and chain elasticity exists. The theory…
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…
The swelling equilibrium of Olympic gels, which are composed of entangled cyclic polymers, is studied by Monte Carlo Simulations. In contrast to chemically crosslinked polymer networks, we observe that Olympic gels made of chains with a…
In this study we use non-equilibrium thermodynamics to systematically derive a phase-field model of a polyelectrolyte gel coupled to a hydrodynamic model for a salt solution surrounding the gel. The governing equations for the gel account…
The collapse kinetics of strongly charged polyelectrolytes in poor solvents is investigated by Langevin simulations and scaling arguments. The rate of collapse increases sharply as the valence of counterions, z, increases from one to four.…
The conformation of polyelectrolytes in the solution state has long been of interest in polymer science. Herein we utilize all atom molecular dynamics simulations (MD) and small-angle x-ray scattering experiments (SAXS) to elucidate the…
Polyelectrolyte (PE) hydrogels can dynamically respond to external stimuli, such as changes in pH and temperature, which benefits their use for smart materials and nanodevices with tunable properties. We investigate equilibrium…