Contraction and Coagulation of Spherical Polyelectrolyte Brushes in the Presence of Ag+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ Cations

摘要: Unlike Na+ cations, which interact with fully neutralized poly(acrylic acid) as purely electrostatic entities, cations like Ag+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ exhibit specific interactions the COO– residues of anionic polyacrylates. The present work analyzes interaction all four a layer polyacrylate chains grafted onto spherical polystyrene core an outer shell. First foremost analysis answers question on how these influence nature shell solution behavior polyelectrolyte brushes. It could be unambiguously demonstrated that induce drastic shrinking shells at cation concentrations lower by 2–3 orders magnitude compared to transition stretched osmotic brush shrunken salted accomplished cations. Ag+ induces particularly abrupt contraction, comes close annealing such brushes achieved neutralization protons. Finally, ...