Related papers: Polyelectrolyte Solutions with Multivalent Salts
We study the contribution of polyelectrolytes in solution to the bending moduli of charged membranes. Using the Helfrich free energy, and within the mean-field theory, we calculate the dependence of the bending moduli on the electrostatics…
We investigate the phenomenon of multilayer formation via layer-by-layer deposition of alternating charge polyelectrolytes. Using mean-field theory, we find that a strong short-range attraction between the two types of polymer chains is…
We use a coarse-grained molecular dynamics model to study the electrophoretic behaviour of flexible polyelectrolyte chains. We first characterize the static properties of the model with respect to the chain length, the polyelectrolyte…
Using molecular dynamics simulations, it is demonstrated that monovalent counterions can induce aggregation of similarly charged rod-like polyelectrolyte chains. The critical value of the linear charge density for aggregation is shown to be…
A variational approach is used to calculate free energy and conformational properties in polyelectrolytes. The true bond and Coulomb potentials are approximated by a trial isotropic harmonic energy containing monomer-monomer force constants…
The persistence length of a single, strongly charged, stiff polyelectrolyte chain is investigated theoretically. Path integral formulation is used to obtain the effective electrostatic interaction between the monomers. We find significant…
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…
Ion-mediated interaction is important for the properties of polyelectrolytes such as colloids and nucleic acids. The effective pair interactions between two polyelectrolytes have been investigated extensively, but the many-body effect for…
Theories of solvation free energies often involve electrostatic potentials at the position of a solute charge. Simulation calculations that apply cutoffs and periodic boundary conditions based on molecular centers result in center-dependent…
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…
Complexation of a long flexible polyelectrolyte (PE) molecule with oppositely charged spherical particles such as colloids, micelles, or globular proteins in a salty water solution is studied. PE binds spheres winding around them, while…
Density functional theory is used to describe electrolyte solutions in contact with electrodes of planar or spherical shape. For the electrolyte solutions we consider the so-called civilized model, in which all species present are treated…
Poisson-Boltzmann theory is the cornerstone for soft matter electrostatics. We provide novel exact analytical solutions to this non-linear mean-field approach, for the diffuse layer of ions in the vicinity of a planar or a cylindrical…
Ion distributions in dilute polyelectrolyte solutions are studied by means of Langevin dynamics simulations. We show that the distributions depend on the conformation of a chain while the conformation is determined by the chain stiffness…
Computer simulations are used to investigate the response of a charged colloid and its surrounding microion cloud to an external electric field. Both static fields (DC) and alternating fields (AC) are considered. A mesoscopic simulation…
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…
Similarly-charged polymers in solution, known as polyelectrolytes, are known to form aggregated structures in the presence of oppositely charged counterions. Understanding the dependence of the equilibrium phases and the dynamics of the…
We study the attractive interactions between rod-like charged polymers in solution that appear in the presence of multi-valence counterions. The counterions condensed to the rods exhibit both a strong transversal polarization and a…
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…
Screening of a strongly charged macroion by oppositely charged colloidal particles, micelles, or short polyelectrolytes is considered. Due to strong lateral repulsion such multivalent counterions form a strongly correlated liquid at the…