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Many-body interactions between charged particles in a polymer solution: the protein regime
Haiqiang Wang1, Jan Forsman, Clifford E Woodward
1School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences University College, University of New South Wales, ADFA Canberra ACT 2600, Australia.
Soft Matter
|April 27, 2018
Summary
Adding polymers to charged particle solutions creates attractions. A new theory accurately captures many-body effects, improving predictions of phase behavior and stability limits for these complex mixtures.
Area of Science:
- Physical Chemistry
- Soft Matter Physics
- Colloid Science
Background:
- Charged particles in electrolyte solutions exhibit complex phase behavior.
- Non-adsorbing polymers can induce attractive depletion interactions between particles.
- Many-body effects significantly influence polymer-mediated interactions when polymer size matches particle size.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the phase behavior of charged particles in electrolyte solutions with added polymers.
- To develop and validate an analytical theory for polymer-mediated depletion interactions, including many-body effects.
- To compare the accuracy of many-body versus pair potential approaches and assess system stability.
Main Methods:
- Development of a new analytical theory providing a closed-form expression for the full depletion interaction.
- Simulation of an explicit polymer model to validate the theoretical potential of mean force.
- Estimation of mixture stability limits using a simple simulation method.
Main Results:
- The developed analytical theory accurately describes the potential of mean force in charged particle/polymer mixtures across various electrolyte concentrations.
- The many-body treatment provides a computationally efficient and accurate description, outperforming the traditional pair potential approach.
- The pair potential approximation overestimates the polymer depletion effect, predicting a wider, inaccurate region of instability.
Conclusions:
- A novel analytical theory effectively captures complex many-body interactions in polymer-additive systems.
- The many-body approach is crucial for accurately predicting the phase behavior and stability of charged particle/polymer mixtures.
- The study highlights the limitations of pair potential approximations in such systems.
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