The Critical Transition from Soluble Complexes to Colloidal Aggregates of Polyelectrolyte Complexes at...

The transition from soluble to colloidal polyelectrolyte complex normally occurs at a critical non-stoichiometric charge ratio. Here, it is demonstrated that the conventional batch mixing produces heterogeneous binding and complexation, which can easily mask this soluble-colloidal complex transition (sol-col transition) even for weakly binding polyelectrolytes like polyacrylic acid (PAA) and poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC). When mixed efficiently using multi-inlet vortex mixer (MIVM), the sol-col transition occurs beyond a critical charge ratio (n-/n+) and the large colloidal complexes are formed through the aggregation of small primary complexes (as revealed by atomic force microscopy). Moreover, the sol-col transition occurs at a constant charge ratio below the overlapping concentration (c*) of the long host polyelectrolyte, but at lower charge ratios above c* due to chain entanglement. When adding NaCl to the solution, the sol-col transition charge ratio first decreases, then remained stable for a period, and finally increased and vanished at high ionic strength. When replacing NaCl with chaotropic salts, the sol-col transition occurs at lower charge ratios, while kosmotropes has little impact. The solvent quality and polymer hydrophobicity effects are also discussed. With the assistance of rapid mixing, this study provides a more reliable way of studying the sol-col transition of polyelectrolyte complexes.