Hydration and pH-regulated switching of polyelectrolyte brush
Based on the Flory-Huggins theory,we established a theoretical model to study the conformational transition of polyelectrolyte brushes regulated by hydration and pH.The theoretical model considers the interac-tion between polyelectrolyte chains and water molecules(hydration of polyelectrolyte chains)and electrostatic in-teractions in the system.We found that the polyelectrolyte brushes change from swelling to collapse with the change of hydration.This suggests that hydration can largely modulate the polyelectrolyte brush phase transition.By analyzing the regulation effect of pH,we also found that in an alkaline environment(pH=8),the dissocia-tion degree of the polyelectrolyte chain monomer increases,and the electrostatic repulsion will make the polyelec-trolyte brush swell.This suggests that the coupling of hydration and electrostatic effects in polyelectrolyte brushes will jointly determine the conformational transition properties of polyelectrolyte brushes.The theoretical results profoundly reveal that the change of hydration will cause the phase transition of the polyelectrolyte brush system,and the pH can change the phase transition characteristics to a large extent.
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