Ultrathin films with noncentrosymmetrically orientated azobenzene chromophores were constructed using a combination of layer-by-layer adsorption of polyelectrolytes and the surface sol-gel process.

The effect of polyelectrolytes; cationic and anionic charges and coagulants have been investigated for fresh activated sludge at different concentrations and pH values in a comparative fashion. The results from the experiments indicate that the cationic polyelectrolytes have a significant effluence on the sludge characteristic, degree of flocculation and water quality such as turbidity and SVI....

A simple semi-empirical theory is developed for the ionic strength dependence of the flexible polymer-induced condensation of semiflexible polyelectrolytes such as DNA and F-actin filaments. Critical concentrations of flexible polymer needed for condensation are calculated by comparing the free energies of inserting the semiflexible polyelectrolytes in a solution of flexible polymers, respectiv...

The persistence length of charged linear polymers in semidilute solution must increase substantially upon addition of salt. For very long polymers the persistence length increases as the salt concentration to the 5/2 power provided this salt concentration is not too large. In deriving this scaling we correct our previous prediction in light of a recent paper by Barrat and Joanny, and in agreeme...

One of the barriers to understanding structure-property relations for glycosaminoglycans has been the lack of constructive interplay between the principles and methodologies of the life sciences (molecular biology, biochemistry and cell biology) and the physical sciences, particularly in the field of polyelectrolytes. To address this, we first review the similarities and differences between the...

A new Monte Carlo method for computing thermodynamical properties of very large polyelectrolytes is presented. It is based on a renormalization group relating the original polymer to a smaller system, where, in addition to the naively rescaled forces, a corrective nearest-neighbor interaction originating from the short distance Coulomb cutoff is introduced. The method is derived for low T but i...