Related papers: Polyelectrolyte Titration: Theory and Experiment
We consider the complexation of highly charged semiflexible polyelectrolytes with oppositely charged macroions. On the basis of scaling arguments we discuss how the resulting complexes depend on the persistence length of the…
The charge profile of thermally poled electrets has been studied using two different methods, laser induced pressure pulse (LIPP) and pulsed electroacoustic (PEA), to gain insight into the mechanisms that are activated and assess which is…
We study the adsorption-desorption transition of polyelectrolyte chains onto planar, cylindrical and spherical surfaces with arbitrarily high surface charge densities by massive Monte Carlo computer simulations. We examine in detail how the…
We study conformational and electrophoretic properties of polyelectrolytes (PEs) in tetravalent salt solutions under the action of electric fields by means of molecular dynamics simulations. Chain conformations are found to have a sensitive…
The effective elasticity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes is studied in the presence of counterions, with and without added salt. The rigid polymer conformations may become unstable due to an effective attraction induced by…
We present an exact field-theoretic formulation for a fluctuating, generally asymmetric, salt density in the presence of a charged plate. The non-linear Poisson-Boltzmann equation is obtained as the saddle-point of our field theory action.…
Synchrotron-X-ray and surface tension studies of a strong polyelectrolyte (PE) in the semi-dilute regime (~ 0.1M monomer-charges) with varying surfactant concentrations show that minute surfactant concentrations induce the formation of a…
The nature of electrostatic interactions involving polyanions modulate the properties of both synthetic and biological macromolecules. Although intensely studied for decades the interplay of many length scales has prevented a complete…
We have modeled the layer-by-layer assembly process of flexible polyelectrolytes on flat surfaces. The multilayer has a three-zone structure. An exponential growth is found for the first several layers, followed by a linear growth for…
We propose a detailed description of the structure of the layer formed by polyelectrolyte chains adsorbed onto an oppositely charged surface in the semi-dilute regime. We combine the mean-field Poisson-Boltzmann-Edwards theory and the…
We describe the ``electrolubrication'' occurring in liquid mixtures confined between two charged surfaces. For a mixture of two liquids, the effective viscosity decreases markedly in the presence of a field. The origin of this reduction is…
Corona charging a free-standing polymer film can produce a quasi-permanent potential difference across the film thickness, while the absolute amplitude of surface voltage may be highly sensitive to the free charges. To precisely control the…
We study the reentrant condensation of polyelectrolytes in dilute solutions of small multivalent salts, whose phase-transition mechanism remains poorly understood. Motivated by recent full atomic simulation results reported by the Caltech…
Understanding the electrical double layer (EDL), i.e, the distribution of electrolyte at an electrified interface, in concentrated electrolytes is important for various technologies, such as supercapacitors, batteries and electrocatalysis.…
We develop a first-principle equation of state of salt-free polyelectrolyte solution in the limit of infinitely long flexible polymer chains in the framework of a field-theoretical formalism beyond the linear Debye-Hueckel theory and…
We studied polyelectrolyte adsorption on a repulsive charged surface by scaling analysis. At low ionic strength and low surface charge density in which a single polyelectrolyte is able to be adsorbed onto the surface, different regimes in…
Recent studies have pointed the importance of polyelectrolyte assembly in the elaboration of innovative nanomaterials. Beyond their structures, many important questions on the thermodynamics of association remain to be answered. Here, we…
We investigate the equilibrium charge distribution along a single annealed polyelectrolyte chain under different conditions. The coupling between the conformation of the chain and the local charge distribution is described for various…
The reaction ensemble and the constant pH method are well-known chemical equilibrium approaches to simulate protonation and deprotonation reactions in classical molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations. In this article, we show…
Charged colloidal monolayers at the interface between water and air (or oil) are used in a large number of chemical, physical and biological applications. Although a considerable experimental and theoretical effort has been devoted in the…