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arXiv 2402.13686cond-mat.soft
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稀释多价盐诱导的聚电解质重入凝聚:平均场层面的再考察

The reentrant condensation of polyelectrolytes induced by diluted multivalent salts: A mean-field level revisiting

Huaisong Yong, Bilin Zhuang, Sissi de Beer

AI总结:

本文构建平均场模型解释多价盐稀溶液中聚电解质的重入凝聚,指出离子吸附、共享盐离子的耦合能极小值及疏水不相容性是相变关键。

摘要:

我们研究了小型多价盐稀溶液中聚电解质的重入凝聚现象,其相变机制目前仍知之甚少。受加州理工学院(Caltech)团队近期关于多价盐存在时聚电解质相行为的全原子模拟结果(DOI:10.1021/acs.macromol.3c02437 和 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03640)启发,本工作构建了一个简单而有效的平均场模型,该模型能够合理解释重入凝聚的基本特征,包括聚电解质的相图。模型揭示,离子单体与多价离子之间的强吸附作用,可能是相当低浓度多价盐同时触发塌缩和重入转变这一奇特现象的根源。该模型的解析解首次表明,离子单体之间共享多价盐离子所产生的耦合能极小值,对于相变发生至关重要,这可以解释一个令人困惑的观测结果:聚电解质只有在具有选择性多价性的盐的稀溶液中才会表现出相变。我们的解析计算还表明,聚电解质不带电部分与水之间的不相容性,对于调控聚电解质在水溶液中的相行为至关重要。这与近期关于两亲性蛋白质溶液性质的实验研究相一致。所得结果将有助于理解生物系统中的液-液相分离,在这些系统中,与生物聚电解质结合的多价离子发挥着重要作用。

英文摘要:

We study the reentrant condensation of polyelectrolytes in dilute solutions of small multivalent salts, whose phase-transition mechanism remains poorly understood. Motivated by recent full atomic simulation results reported by the Caltech group on phase behaviors of polyelectrolytes in presence of multivalent salts (DOIs: 10.1021/acs.macromol.3c02437 and 10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c03640), in this work we construct a simple but effective mean-field model which can rationalize the essential features of the reentrant condensation including the phase diagram of polyelectrolyte. The model unveils that the strong adsorption between the ionic monomers and multivalent ions can be at the origin of the peculiar phenomenon that rather low concentrations of multivalent salts trigger both collapse and re-entry transitions. For the first time, the analytical solution of the model indicates that a minimum of coupling energy due to sharing multivalent salt ions between ionic monomers is essential for a phase transition to occur, which can explain the enigmatic observation that polyelectrolytes can only show phase transition in a dilute solution of salts with selective multivalency. Our analytical calculations also show that the incompatibility of the uncharged moieties of the polyelectrolytes with water is critical to regulate phase behaviors of polyelectrolytes in aqueous solutions. This is in agreement with recent experimental investigations on solution properties of amphiphilic proteins. The obtained results will contribute to the understanding of liquid-liquid phase separation in biological systems where multivalent ions bound to bio-polyelectrolytes play an essential role.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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