Field-based simulations of nanostructured polyelectrolyte gels

Published

August 11, 2015

Author(s)

Debra J. Audus, Glenn Fredrickson

Abstract

Nanostructured, responsive hydrogels composed of oppositely charged triblock copolymers with charged end-blocks and neutral, hydrophilic mid-blocks in aqueous solution were recently discovered. Due to electrostatic interactions, the end-blocks microphase separate and form physical cross-links that are bridged by the mid-blocks. Since these hydrogels are hydrophilic and have the ability to respond to a variety of stimuli including temperature and salt concentration, they are promising for a variety of biomedical applications including, but not limited to, drug delivery and tissue scaffolds. For such applications, there is a need to under-stand how to control the structure of the hydrogel. To this end, we use a new, efficient model along with self-consistent field theory to determine the structure as a function of polymer concentration and end-block fraction. After identifying numerous phases including a sphere phase, a hexagonally packed cylinder phase, a lamellar phase, and regions of phase coexistence, we determine how the polymer functionality can be tuned to manipulate the resulting phase diagram.

Conference Dates

September 8-10, 2014

Conference Location

Boulder, CO

Conference Title

4th WMRIF Young Materials Scientist Workshop

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-724-6_1

Citation

Audus, D. and Fredrickson, G. (2015), Field-based simulations of nanostructured polyelectrolyte gels, 4th WMRIF Young Materials Scientist Workshop, Boulder, CO, [online], https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-724-6_1 (Accessed October 11, 2025)