Brownian dynamics study of polymer-stabilized nanoparticles

A Brownian dynamics simulation was carried out for a spherical nanoparticle with polymer chains tethered to its surface. These simulations are relevant to understanding the transport properties of polymer-stabilized nanoparticles in environmental and other applications. Hydrodynamic interactions (HI) were taken into account to properly describe the diffusion properties of a stabilized particle. HI are important in this context because of the close proximity of the surface-tethered polymer chains. HI were implemented using a method introduced by Fixman (1986 Macromolecules 19 1204), which uses a Chebyshev polynomial expansion to calculate the square root of the diffusion tensor. Simulation predictions were compared to published experimental data for the hydrodynamic radius of a silica particle stabilized by polystyrene tethered chains, and good agreement was achieved. A relationship that allows polymer-stabilized particles with arbitrary polymer-chain densities to be modelled is developed.