Other Engineering Commons^™

The Effect Of Comb Architecture On Complex Coacervation, Brandon M. Johnston, Cameron W. Johnston, Rachel A. Letteri, Tyler K. Lytle, Charles E. Sing, Todd Emrick, Sarah L. Perry

Chemical Engineering Faculty Publication Series

Complex coacervation is a widely utilized technique for effecting phase separation, though predictive understanding of molecular-level details remains underdeveloped. Here, we couple coarse-grained Monte Carlo simulations with experimental efforts using a polypeptide-based model system to investigate how a comb-like architecture affects complex coacervation and coacervate stability. Specifically, the phase separation behavior of linear polycation-linear polyanion pairs was compared to that of comb polycation-linear polyanion and comb polycation-comb polyanion pairs. The comb architecture was found to mitigate cooperative interactions between oppositely charged polymers, as no discernible phase separation was observed for comb-comb pairs and complex coacervation of linear-linear pairs yielded stable …