Mesoscale simulations of the behavior of charged polymer brushes under normal compression and lateral shear forces

Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) was used to investigate the behavior of two opposing end-grafted charged polymer brushes in aqueous media under normal compression and lateral shear. The effect of polymer molecular weight, degree of ionization, grafting density, ionic strength, and compression on the polymer conformation and the resulting shear force between the opposing polymer layers were investigated. The simulations were carried out for the poly(tert-butyl methacrylate)-block-poly(sodium sulfonate glycidyl methacrylate) copolymer, referred as PtBMA-b-PGMAS, end-attached to a hydrophobic surface for comparison with previous experimental data. Mutual interpenetration of the opposing end-grafted chains upon compression is negligible for highly charged polymer brushes for compression ratios ranging from 2.5 to 0.25. Under electrostatic screening effects or for weakly charged polymer brushes, a significant mutual interpenetration was measured. The variation of interpenetration thickness with separation distance, grafting density, and polymer size follows the same scaling law as the one observed for two opposing grafted neutral brushes in good solvent. However, compression between two opposing charged brushes results in less interpenetration relative to neutral brushes when considering equivalent grafting density and molecular weight. The friction coefficient between two opposing polymer-coated surfaces sliding past each other is shown to be directly correlated with the interpenetration thickness and more specifically to the number of polymer segments within the interpenetration layer.