Multiblob coarse-graining for mixtures of long polymers and soft colloids

Author(s)
Emanuele Locatelli, Barbara Capone, Christos N. Likos
Abstract

Soft nanocomposites represent both a theoretical and an experimental challenge due to the high number of the microscopic constituents that strongly influence the behaviour of the systems. An effective theoretical description of such systems invokes a reduction of the degrees of freedom to be analysed, hence requiring the introduction of an efficient, quantitative, coarse-grained description. We here report on a novel coarse graining approach based on a set of transferable potentials that quantitatively reproduces properties of mixtures of linear and star-shaped homopolymeric nanocomposites. By renormalizing groups of monomers into a single effective potential between a f-functional star polymer and an homopolymer of length N-0, and through a scaling argument, it will be shown how a substantial reduction of the to degrees of freedom allows for a full quantitative description of the system. Our methodology is tested upon full monomer simulations for systems of different molecular weight, proving its full predictive potential.

Organisation(s)
Computational and Soft Matter Physics
Journal
Journal of Chemical Physics
Volume
145
No. of pages
10
ISSN
0021-9606
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4965957
Publication date
11-2016
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103015 Condensed matter
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General Physics and Astronomy, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/0cb6bbde-fedd-42eb-ad96-554c58ea6eb1