Wetting Behavior of Complex Coacervates

ORAL

Abstract

Complex coacervates are promising materials for use as underwater adhesives, inspired by biological systems of sand-castle worms and mussels. The performance of such adhesives depends on the wetting behavior of coacervates on solid surfaces. We analyze the wetting transition in systems where the polyelectrolyte adsorption is driven by electrostatic (electrowetting) and by nonelectrostatic forces (i.e. hydrogen bonding, hydrophobicity, coordination, etc.).

*C.B. is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship under Award Number DE-SC0020347.

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Presenters

  • Christopher Balzer

    • Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Caltech

Authors

  • Christopher Balzer

    • Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Caltech

  • Pengfei Zhang

    • Center for Advanced Low-dimension Materials, Donghua University
    • Donghua University, China

  • Zhen-Gang Wang

    • Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Caltech
    • Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division, California Institute of Technology