scholarly journals Interfacial Behavior of Solid- and Liquid-like Polyelectrolyte Complexes as a Function of Charge Stoichiometry

Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 3848
Author(s):  
Hongwei Li ◽  
Martin Fauquignon ◽  
Marie Haddou ◽  
Christophe Schatz ◽  
Jean-Paul Chapel

We systematically investigate in this work the surface activity of polyelectrolyte complex (PECs) suspensions as a function of the molar charge ratio Z (= [-]/[+]) from two model systems: the weakly and strongly interacting poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride)/poly (acrylic acid sodium salt) (PDADMAC/PANa) and poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride)/poly (sodium 4- styrenesulfonate) (PDADMAC/PSSNa) pairs, respectively. For both systems, the PEC surface tension decreases as the system approaches charge stoichiometry (Z = 1) whenever the complexation occurs in the presence of excess PDADMAC (Z < 1) or excess polyanion (Z > 1) consistent with an increased level of charge neutralization of PEs forming increasingly hydrophobic and neutral surface-active species. The behavior at stoichiometry (Z = 1) is also particularly informative about the physical nature of the complexes. The PDADMAC/PANa system undergoes a liquid–liquid phase transition through the formation of coacervate microdroplets in equilibrium with macroions remaining in solution. In the PDADMAC/PSSNa system, the surface tension of the supernatant was close to that of pure water, suggesting that the PSSNa-based complexes have completely sedimented, consistent with a complete liquid–solid phase separation of an out-of-equilibrium system. Besides, the high sensitivity of surface tension measurements, which can detect the presence of trace amounts of aggregates and other precursors in the supernatant, allows for very accurate determination of the exact charge stoichiometry of the complexes. Finally, the very low water/water interfacial tension that develops between the dilute phase and the denser coacervate phase in the PDADAMAC/PANa system was measured using the generalized Young–Laplace method to complete the full characterization of both systems. The overall study showed that simple surface tension measurements can be a very sensitive tool to characterize, discriminate, and better understand the formation mechanism of the different structures encountered during the formation of PECs.

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 519-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Li ◽  
T. Hede ◽  
Y. Tu ◽  
C. Leck ◽  
H. Ågren

Abstract. Aerosol particles in the atmosphere are important participants in the formation of cloud droplets and have significant impact on cloud albedo and global climate. According to the Köhler theory which describes the nucleation and the equilibrium growth of cloud droplets, the surface tension of an aerosol droplet is one of the most important factors that determine the critical supersaturation of droplet activation. In this paper, with specific interest to remote marine aerosol, we predict the surface tension of aerosol droplets by performing molecular dynamics simulations on two model systems, the pure water droplets and glycine in water droplets. The curvature dependence of the surface tension is interpolated by a quadratic polynomial over the nano-sized droplets and the limiting case of a planar interface, so that the so-called Aitken mode particles which are critical for droplet formation could be covered and the Köhler equation could be improved by incorporating surface tension corrections.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 23169-23196 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Li ◽  
T. Hede ◽  
Y. Tu ◽  
C. Leck ◽  
H. Ågren

Abstract. Aerosol particles in the atmosphere are important participants in the formation of cloud droplets and have significant impact on cloud albedo and global climate. According to the Köhler theory which describes the nucleation and the equilibrium growth of cloud droplets, the surface tension of an aerosol droplet is one of the most important factors that determine the critical supersaturation of droplet activation. In this paper, with specific interest to remote marine aerosol, we predict the surface tension of aerosol droplets by performing molecular dynamics simulations on two model systems; the pure water droplets and glycine in water droplets. The curvature dependence of the surface tension is interpolated by a quadratic polynomial over the nano-sized droplets and the limiting case of a planar interface, so that the so-called Aitken mode particles which are critical for droplet formation could be covered and the Köhler equation could be improved by incorporating surface tension corrections.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 6077-6112
Author(s):  
T. Anttila ◽  
V.-M. Kerminen

Abstract. Aitken mode particles are potentially an important source of cloud droplets in continental background areas. In order to find out which physico-chemical properties of Aitken mode particles are most important regarding their cloud-nucleating ability, we applied a global sensitivity method to an adiabatic air parcel model simulating the number of cloud droplets formed on Aitken mode particles, CD2. The technique propagates uncertainties in the parameters describing the properties of Aitken mode to CD2. The results show that if the Aitken mode particles do not contain molecules that are able to reduce the particle surface tension more than 30% and/or decrease the mass accommodation coefficient of water, α, below 10−2, the chemical composition and modal properties may have roughly an equal importance at low updraft velocities characterized by maximum supersaturations <0.1%. For larger updraft velocities, however, the particle size distribution is clearly more important than the chemical composition. In general, CD2 exhibits largest sensitivity to the particle number concentration, followed by the particle size. Also the shape of the particle mode, characterized by the geometric standard deviation (GSD), can be as important as the mode mean size at low updraft velocities. Finally, the performed sensitivity analysis revealed also that the chemistry may dominate the total sensitivity of CD2 to the considered parameters if: 1) the value of α varies at least one order of magnitude more than what is expected for pure water surfaces (10−2–1), or 2) the particle surface tension varies more than roughly 30% under conditions close to reaching supersaturation.


2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 15595-15640 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. R. Ruehl ◽  
P. Y. Chuang ◽  
A. Nenes

Abstract. The hygroscopicity of an aerosol largely determines its influence on climate and, for smaller particles, atmospheric lifetime. While much aerosol hygroscopicity data is available at lower relative humidities (RH) and under cloud formation conditions (RH>100%), relatively little data is available at high RH (99.2 to 99.9%). We measured the size of droplets at high RH that had formed on particles composed of one of seven compounds with dry diameters between 0.1 and 0.5 μm, and calculated the hygroscopicity of these compounds. We use a parameterization of the Kelvin term, in addition to a standard parameterization (κ) of the Raoult term, to express the hygroscopicity of surface-active compounds. For inorganic compounds, hygroscopicity could reliably be predicted using water activity data and assuming a surface tension of pure water. In contrast, most organics exhibited a slight to mild increase in hygroscopicity with droplet diameter. This trend was strongest for sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), the most surface-active compound studied. The results suggest that partitioning of surface-active compounds away from the bulk solution, which reduces hygroscopicity, dominates any increases in hygroscopicity due to reduced surface tension. This is opposite to what is typically assumed for soluble surfactants. Furthermore, we saw no evidence that micellization limits SDS activity in micron-sized solution droplets, as observed in macroscopic solutions. These results suggest that while the high-RH hygroscopicity of inorganic compounds can be reliably predicted using readily available data, surface-activity parameters obtained from macroscopic solutions with organic solutes may be inappropriate for calculations of the hygroscopicity of micron-sized droplets.


2015 ◽  
pp. 126-133
Author(s):  
V. D. Shantarin ◽  
M. Yu. Zemenkova

This article is devoted to studying the properties of water and its model. It is shown that the existing models are not able to explain the entire set of properties of water, considering water as a non-equilibrium system and possessing the properties of self-organization and sensitive to weak field effects. The results of the authors’ research confirm a cluster-fractal model which considers water as a mixture of free molecules and fragments with the ordered hexagonal structure. It is shown that pure water electric conductivity depends on concentration of ions and the water capability of a relay way of transfer of these ions, which depends on its structural- information state.


2011 ◽  
Vol 312-315 ◽  
pp. 387-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaromír Drápala ◽  
Alena Struhařová ◽  
Daniel Petlák ◽  
Vlastimil Vodárek ◽  
Petr Kubíček

Problems of reactive diffusion at the solid phase and melt contact were studied theoretically and experimentally. The main intention was to calculate the time course of the solid phase dissolving in the case of cylindrical dissolving. These calculations were carried out on the assumption for the rate constant of dissolving K = const. In our work we give heed especially to the dominating process, which is the solid metal A dissolved in the melt B. During the dissolving the melt B saturates with the metal A and the process is influenced by convections which are characteristic for the given experimental configuration. A theoretical description of the kinetics of the solid phase dissolving in the melt will be presented for the case of cylindrical dissolving. The aim is to derive a relation for the interface boundary movement c(t) in dependence on time and a time course of growth of the element A concentration in the melt B. There are problems with accurate determination of the interface boundary movement after certain heating times of specimens, when it is observed experimentally, since intermetallic phases create in the original A metal at both the diffusion and cooling and some phases segregate at the solidifying melt cooling. The main intention was an experimental study of the copper dissolving in the tin melt. Experiments aimed to the determination of the Cu wires (diameters from 0.5 to 3.5 mm) dissolution in the solder melt were carried out at various selected temperatures and times. Rapid growth of phases in the metal A and determination of the thickness of layers with these phases pose considerable time demands to X-ray micro-analyses (WDX, EDX) of specimens after their long-time heating.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Yidan Jiang ◽  
Pengfei Wang ◽  
Ronghua Liu ◽  
Ye Pei ◽  
Gaogao Wu

Surfactants can improve the wetting performance of the dust-reduction spraying water, thus improving the dust-reduction effect by spray. In this study, the performance of surfactant solution in wetting coal dust was investigated through experiments. In addition, the effects of surfactant type, mass fraction, metamorphic degree of coal, particle size, and additives were investigated. According to the results of surface tension experiments, the surface tension of the solution decreased with the increase of the concentration of surfactant. However, after reaching CMC, the surface tension did not have significantly decrease. SDBS and OP-10 had higher efficiency in decreasing the surface tension than the other two types of surfactants. The addition of sodium sulfate additives can further reduce the surface tension of the surfactant solution by a limited range. The coal dust wetting experiment showed that with the increase in the concentration of the surfactant, the contact angle of the droplets on the coal dust tablet was continuously reduced, and the wettability of the solution was continuously improved. The wettability of the OP-10 solution was optimal. At the same concentration, the minimum contact angle can be obtained in the OP-10 solution. As the contact angle of the coal dust increased, the growth rate in the coal dust reverse osmosis moisture absorption of the surfactant solution relative to the pure water increased. After the addition of sodium sulfate, the reverse osmosis moisture absorption of coal dust increased to varying degrees. In addition, as the concentration of additives increased, the moisture absorption of coal dust increased.


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