Revisiting Polymer-Particle Interaction in PEO Solutions

9 pags., 7 figs., 3 tabs.We have measured the electrophoretic mobility and diffusion coefficient of carboxylate-modified and sulfate-modified polystyrene latex particles in poly(ethylene oxide) aqueous solutions. Carboxylate-modified polystyrene particles have shown a bound polymeric layer as the surface net charge vanishes even at very low poly(ethylene oxide) concentration. The polymeric layer causes a lower electrophoretic mobility and slower Brownian diffusion than that corresponding to the bare particles. We show that the diffusion is the result of a significantly increased effective particle size 2rheff = 30 nm. This bound layer is not present in sulfate-modified polystyrene latex particles. The interaction between the carboxylate-modified particle surface and the macromolecules has been confirmed by means of atomistic computer simulations. The grafted acrylate copolymers, which come from the preparation procedure of the latex particles, confer more hydrophobic surface ready to interact with the polymer. The simulations suggest that the interaction is modulated not only by the nature of the acrylic acid monomer but also by the length of the grafted copolymer. Our results have important implications for particle selection in microrheology experiments.We thank to the MICINN (project PID2019-107710GB-I00) for the financial support of this investigation. A.E.-V. acknowledges a contract (CM_MAD_IEM_013) from CSIC under the “Promoción de Empleo Joven e Implantación de la Garantía Juvenil” 2014-2020 program.J.R. acknowledges financial support by the CSIC (PIE201860E136 and PIE202050E017)