The Overlap Concentration in Strong Polyelectrolytes
ORAL
Abstract
Understanding strong polyelectrolytes in solution is a major challenge for theory. We have simulated a strong polyelectrolyte in a salt free solution for monomer numbers N =10 to 1600. We calculated the overlap concentration c* and find that c*scales as N -2.5. Morover, not until very large N ≥ 800 does the end-to-end distance at c* approach the infinite dilution limit. The chains at large N are fully stretched at c*, while at small N substantial stretching occurs below c*. For large N the chains are also rodlike in that the form factor at c* is almost that of a straight line for lengths corresponding from a few bond lengths to the end-to-end distance.
*M. R. acknowledges financial support from National Science Foundation under Grant EFMA-1830957, the National Institutes of Health under Grant P01-HL108808. This work was performed, in part, at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, an Office of Science User Facility operated for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525.
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Presenters
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Mark Stevens
- Sandia National Laboratories
- Sandia National Labs
- Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Sandia National Laboratories