Flexible polyelectrolyte conformation in the presence of cationic and anionic surfactants

C.B. Passos, P.S. Kuhn and A. Diehl

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2015, vol. 438, issue C, 436-446

Abstract: In this work we have studied the conformation of flexible polyelectrolyte chains in the presence of cationic and anionic surfactant molecules. We developed a simple theoretical model for the formation of the polyelectrolyte–cationic surfactant complexes and mixed micelles formed by cationic and anionic surfactant molecules, in the framework of the Debye–Hückel–Bjerrum–Manning and Flory theories, with the hydrophobic interaction included explicitly as an effective short-ranged attraction between the surfactant hydrocarbon tails. This simple model allows us to calculate the extension of the polyelectrolyte–cationic surfactant complexes as a function of the anionic surfactant concentration, for different types of cationic and anionic surfactant molecules. A discrete conformational transition from a collapsed state to an elongated coil was found, for all surfactant chain lengths we have considered, in agreement with the experimental observations for the unfolding of ​DNA–cationic surfactant complexes.

Keywords: Surfactants; Polyelectrolytes; Complex fluids (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437115005191
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:438:y:2015:i:c:p:436-446

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2015.05.097

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().