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Photo Jan Forsman

Jan Forsman

Professor

Photo Jan Forsman

Exact evaluation of the depletion force between nanospheres in a polydisperse polymer fluid under Θ conditions.

Author

  • Haiqiang Wang
  • Clifford E Woodward
  • Jan Forsman

Summary, in English

We analyze a system consisting of two spherical particles immersed in a polydispersed polymer solution under theta conditions. An exact theory is developed to describe the potential of mean force between the spheres for the case where the polymer molecular weight dispersity is described by the Schulz-Flory distribution. Exact results can be derived for the protein regime, where the sphere radius (Rs) is small compared to the average radius of gyration of the polymer (Rg). Numerical results are relatively easily obtained in the cases where the sphere radius is increased. We find that even when q = Rg/Rs⪆ 10, then the use of a monopole expansion for the polymer end-point distribution about the spheres is sufficient. For even larger spheres q ≈ 1, accuracy is maintained by including a dipolar correction. The implications of these findings on generating a full many-body effective interaction for a collection of N spheres imbedded in the polymer solution are discussed.

Department/s

  • Computational Chemistry
  • eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Publication/Series

Journal of Chemical Physics

Volume

140

Issue

19

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

American Institute of Physics (AIP)

Topic

  • Theoretical Chemistry (including Computational Chemistry)

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0021-9606