Berlin 2018 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 69: Focus: Polymers in Multi-Component and Aqueous Solutions I - organized by Jens-Uwe Sommer and Debashish Mukherji
CPP 69.7: Talk
Thursday, March 15, 2018, 17:15–17:30, C 130
Drunken polymers: How does a polymer swell in poor solvent mixtures? — •Debashish Mukherji1, Carlos Marques2, Torsten Stuehn1, and Kurt Kremer1 — 1Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128, Mainz, Germany — 2Institut Charles Sadron, Universite de Strasbourg, CNRS, 23 rue du Loess, 67034, Strasbourg Cedex 2, France
Macromolecular solubility in solvent mixtures often strikes as a paradoxical phenomenon [1]. In a standard poor solvent, chains can collapse due to increased monomer-solvent repulsion interactions that lead to an effective attraction between monomer units, also known as depletion induced attraction. While polymer collapse in poor solvent is well understood, polymer swelling at intermediate mixing ratios of two repulsive solvents still lacks a microscopic explanation. Here we combine computer simulations and theoretical arguments to unveil the microscopic, generic origin of this collapse-swelling-collapse scenario. We show that this phenomenon naturally emerges at constant pressure in mixtures of purely repulsive components when a delicate balance of the entropically driven depletion interactions is achieved [2].
[1] D. Mukherji, C. M. Marques, and K. Kremer, Nature Communications 5, 4882 (2014). [2] D. Mukherji, C. M. Marques, T. Stuehn, and K. Kremer, Nature Communications 8, 1374 (2017).