Electric double layer of spherical pH-responsive polyelectrolyte brushes in an electrolyte solution: A strong stretching theory accounting for excluded volume interaction and mass action law

In this paper, we study the electrostatics of pH-responsive polyelectrolyte-grafted spherical particles by using a strong stretching theory that takes into account the excluded volume interaction and the density of chargeable sites on the polyelectrolyte molecules. Based on free energy formalism, we obtain self-consistent field equations for determining the structure and electrostatics of spherical polyelectrolyte brushes. First, we find that the smaller the radius of the inner core, the longer the height of the polyelectrolyte brush. Then, we also prove that an increase in the excluded volume interaction yields a swelling of the polyelectrolyte brush height. In addition, we demonstrate how the effect of pH, bulk ionic concentration, and lateral separation between adjacent polyelectrolyte chains on the electrostatic properties of a spherical polyelectrolyte brush is affected by the radius of the inner core, the excluded volume interaction, and the chargeable site density. Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.