Search results for "Chemical physics"
showing 10 items of 2553 documents
A Unified Theory of Liquid-Liquid Demixing and Polymer Formation Kinetics
2009
Sickle hemoglobin is a natural hemoglobin mutation with a hydrophobic replacement of a charged aminoacid on the molecular surface. This leads to aggregation into rigid helical structures (“polymerization”), the underlying cause of sickle cell disease. It has also been shown that polymerization occurs in close correspondence with the phase transition of liquid-liquid demixing , or with the critically diverging fluctuations of local concentration occurring in its proximity. Due to this correspondence, polymerization kinetics remarkably appear to exhibit, with respect to demixing temperature, the same universal scaling features shown by amplitudes and lifetimes of fluctuations occurring in pro…
Simulation of Copolymer Bottle-Brushes
2007
The structure of bottle-brush polymers with a rigid backbone and flexible side chains is studied in three dimensions, varying the grafting density, the side chain length, and the solvent quality. Some preliminary results of theoretical scaling considerations for one-component bottle-brush polymers in a good solvent are compared with Monte Carlo simulations of a simple lattice model. For the simulations a variant of the pruned-enriched Rosenbluth method (PERM) allowing for simultaneous growth of all side chains in the Monte Carlo sampling is employed. For a symmetrical binary (A,B) bottle-brush polymer, where two types (A,B) of flexible side chains are grafted with one chain end to the backb…
Simulations of phase transitions in macromolecular systems
2002
Abstract The study of phase transitions in concentrated solutions and melts of flexible or stiff polymers is a computational challenge for computer simulations, since already a single polymer coil exhibits nontrivial structure from the scale of a chemical bond (1 A) to the coil radius (100 A), and for the simulation of collective phenomena huge simulation boxes containing many polymers are required. A strategy to deal with this problem is the use of highly coarse-grained models on a lattice, such as the bond fluctuation model. Several studies employing such models will be briefly reviewed, e.g.: temperature-driven isotropic-nematic phase transition in concentrated solutions of semiflexible …
Biomolecular-solvent stereodynamic coupling probed by deuteration.
1983
Thermodynamic interpretation of experiments with isotopically perturbed solvent supports the view that solvent stereodynamics is directly relevant to thermodynamic stability of biomolecules. According with the current understanding of the structure of the aqueous solvent, in any stereodynamic configuration of the latter, connectivity pathways are identifiable for their topologic and order properties. Perturbing the solvent by isotopic substitution or, e.g., by addition of co-solvents, can therefore be viewed as reinforcing or otherwise perturbing these topologic structures. This microscopic model readily visualizes thermodynamic interpretation. In conclusion, the topologic stereodynamic str…
Static and Dynamic Properties of Adsorbed Chains at Surfaces: Monte Carlo Simulation of a Bead-Spring Model
1996
The adsorption of flexible polymers from dilute solution in good solvents at attractive walls is studied by Monte Carlo simulation of a coarse-grained off-lattice model, varying chain length N and ...
Brownian dynamics simulation of grafted polymer brushes
1995
We present results of computer simulations by the method of Brownian dynamics of polymeric brushes attached to impenetrable planes. For testing both model and method we have used one polymer brush attached to a repulsive plane and compare some results with Monte Carlo results of Lai and Binder on the bond fluctuation model. We have also studied two polymeric brushes attached to two parallel planes at different distances between planes, and investigate the interplay between the interpenetration of the brushes and the configurational properties of the grafted chains.
On the Reasons for an Anomalous Demixing Behavior of Polymer Solutions
2005
Some extraordinary solutions of polymers in single solvents exhibit two liquid/liquid critical points, one within the usual composition range and a second one in the range of moderate to high polymer concentration. This particularity was studied theoretically by means of a recently established approach, which accounts explicitly for chain connectivity and for the ability of polymer molecules to respond to changes in their environment by conformational rearrangements. On the basis of model calculations, it is shown that the anomalous demixing behavior, i.e., the emergence of a second critical point, is bound to the necessary but not sufficient condition that a thermodynamically very unfavora…
Ferrochirality: A simple theoretical model of interacting dynamically invertible helical polymers, 1. The basic effects
1994
The effect of interaction between reversible helical polymers of the poly(hexyl isocyanate) type is investigated by using a molecular field model. It is shown that for interacting helices a critical temperature exists below which they must adopt a common helix-sense spontaneously, even in the absence of any external or intrinsic chiral force
Association Equilibria Theory for Polymers in Mixed Solvents with Specific Interactions
2004
Hydrogen bonding plays an important role in determining the physical and thermodynamic properties of polar fluids. Theoretical and experimental aspects of polymers, in mixed solvents with hydrogen-bonding-specific interactions, are investigated using a simple association model based on the theory of association equilibria developed by Pouchly et al. The thermodynamic non-idealities are accounted for using a modified Flory-Huggins theory with effective g ij parameters. The entropic term of the above formalism has been formulated taking into account the pplymer segment-solvent as well as the solvent-solvent hydrogen-bond formation. Four equilibrium constants are introduced to make a realistic…
Comb-Branched Polymers: Monte Carlo Simulation and Scaling
1996
The Monte Carlo simulation technique (the bond fluctuation model) has been used for the study of the equilibrium conformations of comb-branched polymers consisting of a long flexible main chain and side chains grafted at a regular separation onto the main chain. The solvent has been supposed to be good (athermal) for the main and side chains. The global conformation and the gyration radius of the polymer, as well as the local conformational structure of the comb, have been analyzed as functions of the length of the side chains and spacers. The effect of induced rigidity of the comb due to the interaction between side chains has been observed. We have found the results of the simulation to b…