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Conformations and solution structure of polyelectrolytes in poor solvent
Author(s) -
Limbach Hans Jörg,
Holm Christian,
Kremer Kurt
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
macromolecular symposia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.257
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1521-3900
pISSN - 1022-1360
DOI - 10.1002/masy.200450703
Subject(s) - polyelectrolyte , counterion , chemical physics , solvent , monomer , structure factor , chemistry , molecular dynamics , computational chemistry , materials science , polymer , crystallography , ion , organic chemistry
Abstract Using extensive Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations we study the behavior of polyelectrolytes in poor solvents, where we take explicitely care of the counterions. The resulting pearl‐necklace structures are subject to strong conformational fluctuations, only leading to small signatures in the form factor, which is a severe obstacle for experimental observations. In addition we study how the necklace collapses as a function of Bjerrum length. At last we demonstrate that the position of the first peak in the inter‐chain structure factor varies with the monomer density close to $ρ^{1/3}_{m}$ for all densities. This is in strong contrast to polyelectrolyte solutions in good solvent.