Physics – Condensed Matter – Soft Condensed Matter
Scientific paper
1998-12-02
Langmuir 15, (1999) 4033
Physics
Condensed Matter
Soft Condensed Matter
42 pages, including 22 figures and 2 tables
Scientific paper
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 varying the polymer density and the electrostatic interaction strength we study the crossover from a dominating electrostatic interaction to the regime of strong screening, where the hydrophobic interactions dominate. During the crossover a multitude of structures is observed. In the limit of low polymer density strongly stretched, necklace like conformations are found. In the opposite limit of high polymer density which is equivalent to strongly screened electrostatic interactions, we find that the chains are extremely collapsed, however we observe no agglomeration or phase separation. The investigations show that the density of free charges is one of the relevant parameters which rules the behavior of the system and hence should be used as a parameter to explain experimental results.
Holm Christian
Kremer Kurt
Micka Uwe
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