Search results for "polyelectrolyte"
showing 10 items of 214 documents
Counterion-mediated attraction and kinks on loops of semiflexible polyelectrolyte bundles.
2006
The formation of kinks in a loop of bundled polyelectrolyte filaments is analyzed in terms of the thermal fluctuations of charge density due to polyvalent counterions adsorbed on the polyelectrolyte filaments. It is found that the counterion-mediated attraction energy of filaments depends on their bending. By consideration of curvature elasticity energy and counterion-mediated attraction between polyelectrolyte filaments, the characteristic width of the kink and the number of kinks per loop is found to be in reasonable agreement with existing experimental data for rings of bundled actin filaments.
Polyelectrolytes Revisited: Reliable Determination of Intrinsic Viscosities
2007
The linear extrapolation of (hh0)/(h0c) towards c !0 constitutes the basis of traditional methods to determine intrinsic viscosities (h), where h is the viscosity of polymer solutions of concentration c and h0 is the viscosity of the pure solvent. With uncharged macromolecules this procedure works well; for polyelectrolytes it fails because of the pronounced non-linearity of the above dependence at high dilution resulting from the increasing electrostatic inter- actions. This contribution presents a new method for the determination of (h). It rests upon the application of the laws of phenomenological thermodynamics to the viscosity of polymer solutions and introduces a generalized intrinsic…
Temperature effects on counterion binding to spherical polyelectrolytes: the charge-discharge transition of lignosulfonate
1995
Abstract The effect of temperature on the effective charge numbers and diffusion coefficients of polyelectrolytes has not nobee dealth with in many studies. The present study concerns the temperature behavior of lignosulfonate. Lignosulfonate is a polydisperse polyelectrolyte whose molecules are compact spheres in aqueous solutions. One of its most remarkable properties is that is loses its charge in 0.1 M NaCl aqueous solution at about 40°C. In order to explain this charge-discharge transition, a theory for ion binding to spherical polyelectrolytes based on the relative population of two hydration states of the charged groups is presented. The water molecules adjacent to the charged groups…
Cyclodextrins in Polymer Synthesis: Free Radical Polymerization of a N-Methacryloyl-11-aminoundecanoic Acid/β-Cyclodextrin Pseudorotaxane in an Aque…
1999
The relatively hydrophobic monomer N-methacryloyl-11-aminoundecanoic acid (1) was incorporated as a guest into the cavity of β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) as a host, yielding the water-soluble monomer N-me...
Polymer-induced phase separation in suspensions of bacteria
2010
We study phase separation in suspensions of two unrelated species of rod-like bacteria, Escherichia coli and Sinorhizobium meliloti, induced by the addition of two different anionic polyelectrolytes, sodium polystyrene sulfonate or succinoglycan, the former being synthetic and the latter of natural origin. Comparison with the known behaviour of synthetic colloid-polymer mixtures and with simulations show that "depletion" (or, equivalently, "macromolecular crowding") is the dominant mechanism: exclusion of the non-adsorbing polymer from the region between two neighbouring bacteria creates an unbalanced osmotic force pushing them together. The implications of our results for understanding phe…
Layer-by-layer deposited multilayer assemblies of polyelectrolytes and proteins: from ultrathin films to protein arrays
2008
We have recently introduced a new method of creating ultrathin films of polyelectrolytes based on the electrostatic attraction between opposite charges. Multilayer assemblies are adsorbed in a layer-by-layer fashion from aqueous solutions of the polymers. The total film thickness can easily be adjusted by varying the ionic strength of the solution. Here, we report on the temperature stability and the water content of the multilayer assemblies. Furthermore, we have extended our concept to the incorporation of protein layers into films of synthetic polyelectrolytes. The well established system biotin/streptavidin was used to construct such multilayers, also by biospecific recognition. Adsorpt…
1991
The polysoaps [CH 2 C(Me)(CO 2 R)] n (R=(CH 2 ) 11 N + Me 2 (CH 2 ) 3 SO 3 − , (CH 2 ) 11 N + Me 2 CH 2 CH 2 OH) are studied. Their aqueous solution properties are strongly influenced by added salts; the surface activity can be modified efficiently by an appropriate choice of ions. The interactions of salts and polyzwitterions observed in solution can be extended to the behaviour in bulk. It enables the preparation of uniform, non crystalline blends containing up to equivalent amounts of inorganic salt and polyzwitterions
Concentration-dependent switch between chain association and dissociation of oppositely charged weak polyelectrolytes in solution
2019
Abstract Joint solutions of oppositely charged weak polyelectrolytes are considerably less studied than their strong counterparts; as a result, their thermodynamic understanding is still unsatisfactory. This shortcoming hampers the development of a general picture about the physical properties of these mixtures, which further hampers their use to design new materials. To close this gap, we investigate the ternary system ethanol/polyacid/polybase (polyacid: methacrylic acid containing copolymer; polybase: N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate containing terpolymer) with respect to its demixing and viscometric behavior. Complete homogeneity can only be reached if the total polymer concentration…
Hydrophilic and hydrophobic copolymers of a polyasparthylhydrazide bearing positive charges as vector for gene therapy
2008
BACKGROUND: The design of polymeric vectors for gene delivery provided with specific properties is one of the most critical aspects for a successful gene therapy. These polymers should be biocompatible as well as able to carry efficiently DNA to target tissues and to transfect it into cells. RESULTS: The formation of complexes of poly[(α,β-asparthylhydrazide)–poly(ethylene glycol)] and poly[(α,β-asparthylhydrazide)–hexadecylamine] copolymers functionalised with glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride (PAHy–PEG-GTA and PAHy–C16-GTA, respectively) with DNA was studied. The effects of the introduction of hydrophilic (PEG) or hydrophobic (C16) moieties on the chains of PAHy–GTA copolymers, such as t…