English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

A coarse-graining strategy, previously developed for polymer solutions, isextended here to mixtures of linear polymers and hard-sphere colloids. In thisapproach groups of monomers are mapped onto a single pseudoatom (a blob) andthe effective blob-blob interactions are obtained by requiring the model toreproduce some large-scale structural properties in the zero-density limit. Weshow that an accurate parametrization of the polymer-colloid interactions isobtained by simply introducing pair potentials between blobs and colloids. Forthe coarse-grained model in which polymers are modelled as four-blob chains(tetramers), the pair potentials are determined by means of the iterativeBoltzmann inversion scheme, taking full-monomer pair correlation functions atzero-density as targets. For a larger number $n$ of blobs, pair potentials aredetermined by using a simple transferability assumption based on the polymerself-similarity. We validate the model by comparing its predictions withfull-monomer results for the interfacial properties of polymer solutions in thepresence of a single colloid and for thermodynamic and structural properties inthe homogeneous phase at finite polymer and colloid density. The tetramer modelis quite accurate for $q\lesssim 1$ ($q=\hat{R}_g/R_c$, where $\hat{R}_g$ isthe zero-density polymer radius of gyration and $R_c$ is the colloid radius)and reasonably good also for $q=2$. For $q=2$ an accurate coarse-graineddescription is obtained by using the $n=10$ blob model. We also compare ourresults with those obtained by using single-blob models with state-dependentpotentials.

Accurate coarse-grained models for mixtures of colloids and linear polymers under good-solvent conditions