The local phase transitions of the solvent in the neighborhood of a solvophobic polymer at high pressures
- Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Morego 30, Genova 16163 (Italy)
- Ivanovo State University, Ivanovo (Russian Federation)
- Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden (Germany)
- G.A. Krestov Institute of Solution Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ivanovo (Russian Federation)
We investigate local phase transitions of the solvent in the neighborhood of a solvophobic polymer chain which is induced by a change of the polymer-solvent repulsion and the solvent pressure in the bulk solution. We describe the polymer in solution by the Edwards model, where the conditional partition function of the polymer chain at a fixed radius of gyration is described by a mean-field theory. The contributions of the polymer-solvent and the solvent-solvent interactions to the total free energy are described within the mean-field approximation. We obtain the total free energy of the solution as a function of the radius of gyration and the average solvent number density within the gyration volume. The resulting system of coupled equations is solved varying the polymer-solvent repulsion strength at high solvent pressure in the bulk. We show that the coil-globule (globule-coil) transition occurs accompanied by a local solvent evaporation (condensation) within the gyration volume.
- OSTI ID:
- 22413253
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Chemical Physics Journal Issue: 20 Vol. 141; ISSN JCPSA6; ISSN 0021-9606
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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