Adsorption of Charge Sequence-Specific PolydispersePolyelectrolytes

V Sethuraman and D Zheng and DC Morse and KD Dorfman, MACROMOLECULES, 55, 3030-3038 (2022).

DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.1c02623

We use coarse-grained molecular dynamics toelucidate the influence of polydispersity on the adsorption ofpolydisperse bulk polyanionic chains onto a monodispersepolycationic brush. We consider primarily two different chargesequence scenarios, in which both polymer species are either blockand alternating, for polyanions with afixed dispersity??= 1.5.Polydispersity plays a negligible role when the brush cationicchains are in excess, since all polyanionic chains are adsorbed. Incontrast, when the polyanions are in excess, polydispersitysubstantially decreases the fraction of chains adsorbed into thebrush, irrespective of charge sequence, but increases the number ofmonomers adsorbed. These opposing trends are made possible by selective adsorption of long chains.

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