Electrohydrodynamics of spherical polyampholyte-grafted nanoparticles: Multiscale simulations by coupling of molecular dynamics and lattice-boltzmann method

We perform multiscale simulations based on the coupling of molecular dynamics and lattice-Boltzmann (LB) method to study the electrohydrodynamics of a polyampholyte-grafted spherical nanoparticle. The long-range hydrodynamic interactions are modeled by coupling the movement of particles to a LB fluid. Our results indicate that the net-neutral soft particle moves with a nonzero mobility under applied electric fields. We systematically explore the effects of different parameters, including the chain length, grafting density, electric field, and charge sequence, on the structures of the polymer layer and the electrophoretic mobility of the soft particle. It shows that the mobility of nanoparticles has remarkable dependence on these parameters. We find that the deformation of the polyampholyte chains and the ion distribution play dominant roles in modulating the electrokinetic behavior of the polyampholyte-grafted particle. The enhancement or reduction in the accumulation of counterions around monomers can be attributed to the polymer layer structure and the conformational transition of the chains in the electric field. (c) 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2017, 55, 1435-1447