Hydrodynamic Layer Thickness of a Polybase Brush in the Presence of Salt

Abstract

A grafted weak polyelectrolyte brush has been prepared by the incorporation of one block of a diblock copolymer inside a latex particle. The preformed brush shows a maximum in its hydrodynamic layer thickness radius as a function of added salt. Beyond 0.025 M NaCl, the data can be fitted to the scaling relationship for the salted-brush regime wherein the layer thickness varies as the inverse cubed root of the ionic strength.