Charge symmetry broken complex coacervation
- Liquid-liquid phase separation has emerged as one of the important paradigms in the chemical physics as well as biophysics of charged macromolecular systems. We elucidate an equilibrium phase separation mechanism based on charge regulation, i.e., protonation-deprotonation equilibria controlled by pH, in an idealized macroion system which can serve as a proxy for simple coacervation. First, a low-density density functional calculation reveals the dominance of two-particle configurations coupled by ion adsorption on neighboring macroions. Then a binary cell model, solved on the Debye-Hückel as well as the full nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann level, unveils the charge symmetry breaking as inducing the phase separation between low- and high-density phases as a function of pH. These results can be identified as a charge symmetry broken complex coacervation between chemically identical macroions.
Author: | Arghya Majee, Markus Bier, Ralf Blossey, Rudolf Podgornik |
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Persistent identifier: | https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.043417 |
Parent Title (English): | Physical Review Research |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of publication: | 2020 |
Publishing Institution: | Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Würzburg-Schweinfurt |
Release Date: | 2023/06/19 |
Tag: | Aggregation, Biomolecular self-assembly, Electrostatic interactions, Charged colloids, Colloids, Proteins, Density functional calculations, Polymers & Soft Matter, Biological Physics, Statistical Physics |
Volume: | 2 |
Issue: | 4 |
Institutes and faculty: | Fakultäten / Fakultät für angewandte Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften |