Vladimir A. Baulin 1, 2, Emmanuel Trizac 3
Soft Matter 8 (2012) 2755-2766
The formation of inter-polyelectrolyte complexes from the association of oppositely charged polymers in an electrolyte is studied. The charged polymers are linear oppositely charged polyelectrolytes, with possibly a neutral block. This leads to complexes with a charged core, and a more dilute corona of dangling chains, or of loops (flower-like structure). The equilibrium aggregation number of the complexes (number of polycations m+ and polyanions m-) is determined by minimizing the relevant free energy functional, the Coulombic contribution of which is worked out within Poisson-Boltzmann theory. The complexes can be viewed as colloids that are permeable to micro-ionic species, including salt. We find that the complexation process can be highly specific, giving rise to very localized size distribution in composition space (m+,m-).
- 1. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats [Barcelona] (ICREA),
ICREA – Universitat de Barcelona – Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRI) - 2. Departament d’Enginyeria Quimica,
Universitat Rovira i Virgili - 3. Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques (LPTMS),
CNRS : UMR8626 – Université Paris XI – Paris Sud