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Polyelectrolyte adsorption and brushes

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Adsorbed layers of hydrophobic polyelectrolytes on a hydrophilic substrate, with surface charge density increasing from left to right.
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Diagram of states of spherical polyelectrolyte brushes: collapsed (circles), bundles (squares), star-like (tilted squares), and micelle-like (triangles).

Work by Jan-Michael Carrillo and Andrey Dobrynin at the University of Connecticut.

The first picture shows snapshots of an adsorbed layer of hydrophobic polyelectrolytes on a hydrophilic substrate at different surface charge densities (increasing from left to right).

The second plot, from the second paper, is a diagram of states of spherical polyelectrolyte brushes: collapsed brushes (circles), bundle brushes (squares), star-like brushes (tilted squares), and micelle-like brushes (triangles). The dotted lines separating different conformational regimes are not actual phase transition lines; lB is the Bjerrum length of the system and εLJ is the strength of the monomer-monomer interaction.

Related publications

  • Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Polyelectrolyte Adsorption, J.-M. Y. Carrillo and A. V. Dobrynin, Langmuir 23, 2472 (2007). doi:10.1021/la063079f
  • Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Polyelectrolyte Brushes: From Single Chains to Bundles of Chains, D. J. Sandberg, J.-M. Y. Carrillo, and A. V. Dobrynin, Langmuir 23, 12716 (2007). doi:10.1021/la702203c