Screening of a Small Spherical Macroion by  Oppositely Charged Flexible Polyelectrolyte

Vu Van Quyen; Vu Thi Hai Yen; Nguyen The Toan

doi:10.15625/0868-3166/26/3/8943

Screening of a Small Spherical Macroion by Oppositely Charged Flexible Polyelectrolyte

Vu Van Quyen, Vu Thi Hai Yen, Nguyen The Toan

Author affiliations

Authors

Vu Van Quyen
Vu Thi Hai Yen Faculty of Physics, VNU University of Science,\\ 334 Nguyen Trai Street Thanh Xuan, Hanoi, Vietnam
Nguyen The Toan VNU Key Laboratory Multiscale Simulation of Complex Systems, VNU University of Science, 334 Nguyen Trai Street, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi, Vietnam and School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 837 State Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0430, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15625/0868-3166/26/3/8943

Keywords:

polyelectrolyte, macroion complexation, flexible polymer, electrostatic screening

Abstract

Electrostatic interactions play important roles in the assembly, the structureand the functions of many biological as well as soft matter systems. In the presence of a macro-ion in aqueous solution, oppositely charged molecules mobilize around it to screen out its electrostatic potential. In this paper, we focus on screening of small macroion by a flexible polyelectrolyteusing Monte-Carlo simulation. It is shown that the condensation of the polyelectrolyte around the macroion shows a first order phase transition from a dense to a dilute concentration of monomers. The width of the condensed region increases with stronger screening or with smaller macro-ion charges. For small macro-ion charge, or when the Coulomb interactions are strongly screened, no complexation between the polyelectrolyte and the macro-ion happens.Additionally, long polyelectrolyte protrudes both tails and loops from the macroion. This is quite different from the case of large macroions where only tails appear. Our results can be used to explain various experimental trends.

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Published

10-01-2017

How to Cite

[1]

V. V. Quyen, V. T. H. Yen, and N. T. Toan, “Screening of a Small Spherical Macroion by Oppositely Charged Flexible Polyelectrolyte”, Comm. Phys., vol. 26, no. 3, p. 287, Jan. 2017.

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Vol. 26 No. 3 (2016)

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