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Ionic microgel particles are intriguing systems in which the properties ofthermo-responsive polymeric colloids are enriched by the presence of chargedgroups. In order to rationalize their properties and predict the behaviour ofmicrogel suspensions, it is necessary to develop a coarse-graining strategythat starts from the accurate modelling of single particles. Here, we provide anumerical advancement of a recently-introduced model for charged co-polymerizedmicrogels by improving the treatment of ionic groups in the polymer network. Weinvestigate the thermoresponsive properties of the particles, in particulartheir swelling behaviour and structure, finding that, when charged groups areconsidered to be hydrophilic at all temperatures, highly charged microgels donot achieve a fully collapsed state, in favorable comparison to experiments. Inaddition, we explicitly include the solvent in the description and put forwarda mapping between the solvophobic potential in the absence of the solvent andthe monomer-solvent interactions in its presence, which is found to work veryaccurately for any charge fraction of the microgel. Our work paves the way forcomparing single-particle properties and swelling behaviour of ionic microgelsto experiments and to tackle the study of these charged soft particles at aliquid-liquid interface.

Charge affinity and solvent effects in numerical simulations of ionic microgels