this articles is comprised of two parts: a) an experimental investigation on the behavior of an acrylic gel under dc electric field and b) a physico - mathematical description.a) gel rods made of poly [acrylamide-co-bisacrylamide] were partially hydrolyzed to different extents at ph 12 by teteramethylethylene diamine. equlibrium properties of the resulting gels rods (water content, number of ca...

The equilibrium properties of ionic microgels are investigated using a combination of the Poisson-Boltzmann and Flory theories. Swelling behavior, density profiles, and effective charges are all calculated in a self-consistent way. Special attention is given to the effects of salinity on these quantities. In accordance with the traditional ideal Donnan equilibrium theory, it is found that the e...

This articles is comprised of two parts: a) an experimental investigation on the behavior of an acrylic gel under DC electric field and b) a physico - mathematical description.a) Gel rods made of poly [acrylamide-co-bisacrylamide] were partially hydrolyzed to different extents at pH 12 by teteramethylethylene diamine. Equlibrium properties of the resulting gels rods (water content,...

The ideal Donnan potential of an ionized polyelectrolyte medium is shown to be an approximate solution to a system of Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) equations for a periodic array of charged plates in an electrolyte bath. This result, derived using homogenization and scaling methods, demonstrates that the macrocontinuum, thermodynamic Donnan, and statistical mechanical PB models describe the same pheno...

The surface of monodisperse silica particles synthesized using the Stober process were coated with a thin layer of polystyrene. Surface charge groups were attached by a grafting polymerization of styrene sulfonate. The resulting highly charged monodisperse silica particles self-assemble into crystalline colloidal arrays (CCA) in deionized water. We polymerized hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) a...

The swelling of polyelectrolyte hydrogels has been often explained using simple models derived from the Flory–Rehner model. While these qualitatively predict experimentally observed trends, they also introduce strong approximations and neglect some important contributions. Consequently, sometimes incorrectly ascribe trends to contributions which are minor importance under given conditions. In t...

We review various simple analytical theories for homopolymers within a unified framework. The common guideline of our approach is the Flory theory, and its various avatars, with the attempt at being reasonably self-contained. We expect this review to be useful as an introduction to the topic at the graduate student level.

We study the scaling limit of a fully packed loop model in two dimensions, where the loops are endowed with a bending rigidity. The scaling limit is described by a three-parameter family of conformal field theories, which we characterize via its Coulomb-gas representation. One choice for two of the three parameters reproduces the critical line of the exactly solvable six-vertex model, while ano...