Behavior of rod-like polyelectrolytes near an oppositely charged surface

Abstract

The behavior of highly charged short rod-like polyelectrolytes near oppositely charged planar surfaces is investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. A detailed microstructural study, including monomer and fluid charge distribution, and chain orientation, is provided. The influence of chain length, substrate's surface-charge-density and image forces is considered. Due to the lower chain-entropy (compared to flexible chains), our simulation data show that rod-like polyelectrolytes can, in general, better adsorb than flexible ones do. Nonetheless, at low substrate-dielectric-constant, it is found that repulsive image forces tend to significantly reduce this discrepancy.

Updated results - 19 pages - 10 figs - RevTex 4

References in corpus (3)

• Image charges in spherical geometry: Application to colloidal systems
• Effect of Image Forces on Polyelectrolyte Adsorption at a Charged Surface
• Polyelectrolyte Multilayering on a Charged Planar Surface

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Erratum: Effect of Image Forces on Polyelectrolyte Adsorption at a Charged Surface
• Behavior of block-polyampholytes near a charged surface
• Adsorption of polyelectrolytes in the presence of varying dielectric discontinuity between solution and substrate
• Rodlike counterions at heterogeneously charged surfaces